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THE  HUMAN  INTELLECT,     i  vol.  Svo.    .         .  $5  oo 

ELEMENTS  OF  INTELLECTUAL  SCIENCE,     i  vol. 

crown  Svo.      .          .         .          .          .          .          .     3  oo 

AMERICAN    COLLEGES    AND    THE     AMERICAN 
PUBLIC,     i  vol.   121110.          .        .        .  i  50 

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THE 


ELEMENTS 


INTELLECTUAL  SCIENCE. 


A  MANUAL  FOE  SCHOOLS  AND  COLLEGES. 


ABRIDGED  FROM  THE  HUMAN  INTELLECT/ 


BY  NOAH  .PORTER,  D.D..LL.D. 


PRESIDENT  OP  VALK  COLLKGI 


6ft) 


NEW   YORK: 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS, 

1883. 


Jtnt«red  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1871,  by 

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la  th«  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington.. 


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PREFACE. 


IN  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  many  instructors  and 
friends  of  education,  the  author  has  prepared  an  abridged 
edition  of  his  work  entitled,  The  Human  Intellect,  which 
was  first  published  in  1868.  In  doing  this,  he  has  retained 
all  the  leading  positions  of  the  original  work,  with  many 
of  the  illustrations,  occasionally  condensing  the  language, 
and  not  infrequently  changing  the  order  and  method  of 
the  argument.  Many  important  topics,  less  adapted  to  an 
elementary  work,  have  been  omitted  altogether.  The  con- 
troversial and  critical  observations,  have  to  a  large  extent 
been  dropped,  or  greatly  abridged.  The  historical  matter 
has  been  in  part  retained,  so  far  as  seemed  appropriate  to 
a  strictly  elementary  manual.  In  order,  however,  to  meet 
the  wants  of  schools,  as  well  as  of  colleges,  some  of  the 
matter  which  is  less  adapted  to  beginners,  has  been  printed 
in  smaller  type.  This  may  be  reserved  for  a  review,  or 
omitted  altogether.  The  author  did  not  feel  at  liberty, 
however,  to  forego  for  the  sake  of  beginners,  a  thorough 
discussion  of  the  important  speculative  questions  which 
occupy  the  concluding  part  of  the  treatise.  For  the  con- 
venience of  those  teachers  and  pupils  who  may  wish  to 


iy  PREFACE. 

consult  the  larger  work  the  leading  divisions  and  titles  in 
both  volumes  are  the  same.  "With  many  thanks  for  the 
favor  with  which  the  previous  treatise  has  been  received, 
this  manual  is  now  offered  to  the  public,  and  especially  to 
teachers  and  pupils  in  schools  and  colleges. 

N.  P. 
YALE  COLLEGE,  July,  1871. 


TABLE  OF   CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  SOUL. 


PAGS 
I.- -PSYCHOLOGY  DEFINED  AND  VINDICATED 1 

§  1.  Psychology  and  kindred  terms.  §  2.  Psychology  is  a  science.  §  3.  Its 
relations  to  physiology  and  anthropology.  $  4.  Its  phenomena  known  by  con- 
sciousness, g  5.  Its  phenomena  impel  to  scientific  study,  g  6.  Value  of  Psy- 
chology. It  promotes  self-knowledge  and  moral  culture — Disciplines  to  moral 
reflection.  §  7.  Trains  to  the  knowledge  of  human  nature.  $  8.  Is  indispensable 
to  educators.  $  9.  Disciplines  for  the  study  of  literature.  §  10.  Psychology  the 
mother  of  the  sciences  which  relate  to  man.  $  11.  Its  special  relation  to  logic 
and  metaphysics,  g  12.  Is  a  discipline  to  method. 

II. — THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  SOUL  TO  MATTER.      .       .       .11 

§  13.  Psychology  is  a  branch  of  physics,  g  14.  Reasons  why  its  facts  are  at 
first  distrusted  by  the  student,  §  15.  Material  phenomena  are  the  earliest  known. 
§  16.  Materialistic  misgivings  and  impressions.  $  17.  These  should  be  set  aside. 
In  what  way.  §  18.  The  arguments  of  the  materialist.  (1).  The  soul  is  con- 
nected with  a  body— 2.  The  soul  is  developed  with  the  body— 3.  Is  dependent  oa 
the  body  for  its  knowledge  and  enjoyment — 4.  Also  for  its  energy  and  activity— 
5.  It  terminates  a  series  of  material  existences — The  conclusion  of  the  materialist, 
g  19.  Counter  arguments.  (1).  Its  phenomena  are  unlike  material  phenomena — 
2.  The  soul  distinguishes  itself  from  matter — 3.  The  ?oul  is  self-active — 4.  Is  not 
dependent  on  matter  in  its  highest  activities — 5.  Gradation  of  existence  does  not 
prove  the  soul  to  be  material.  §  20.  The  phenomena  of  the  soul  real.  §  21.  Phe- 
nomena of  one  sort  cannot  be  judged  by  those  of  another.  $  22.  The  phenomena, 
and  language  in  which  they  are  described.  §  23.  Misleading  influence  of  lan- 
guage. 

III. — THE  FACULTIES  OF  THE  SOUL 24 

§  24.  Question  concerning  the  faculties.  §  25.  Faculties  not  parts  or  organs — 
Each  faculty  does  not  act  at  a  separate  time.  §  26.  States  of  the  soul  are  like 
and  unlike  one  another — Their  elements  are  like  and  unlike  in  quality — They  are 

V 


VI  CONTENTS. 

dependent  on  one  another — One  element  is  preponderant  in  each  state.  §  27. 
Faculty  defined.  General  authority — Special  authority,  g  28.  These  facultiel 
common  to  all  men.  $  29.  The  faculties  not  independent  of  one  -another..  $  30. 
The  unity  of  the  soul — Different  kinds  of  unity — Psychical  unity  is  the  highesl 
of  all.  §  31.  Unity  does  not  exclude  complexness.  §  32.  Powers  of  the  s  ml, 
threefold.  §  33.  Faculty,  power,  capacity,  g  34.  Function,  state,  phenomenon. 

IV. — Is  PSYCHOLOGY  A  SCIENCE,  AND  WHAT  ARE  ITS  PRIN- 
CIPLES AND  METHODS? 34 

§  35.  Materials  of  psychology;  It  is  an  inductive  science,  and  the  science  of 
induction.  §  36.  Some  hold  psychology  too  vague  to  be  a  science,  g  37.  The 
materialistic  view  of  psychology.  §  38.  The  cerebralist  theory.  §  39.  The 
phrenological  theory.  §  40.  The  Associationalist  theory — Usually  materialistic. 
§  41.  Metaphysical  or  a  priori  Psychology. 


THE  HUMAN  INTELLECT: 
ITS.  FUNCTION,  DEVELOPMENT,  AND  FACULTIES. 

A   PRELIMINARY   CHAPTER   ......  42 

§  42.  Knowledge  denned.  What  is  it  to  know?  g  43.  The  process  which  pre- 
pares objects  of  knowledge.  §  44.  To  know,  implies  the  certainty  of  being. 
§  45.  Also  the  reality  of  relations.  §  46.  When  is  the  process  of  knowledge  com- 
plete ?  §  47.  The  act  of  knowing  is  diverse  in  its  energy.  Attention.  $  48. 
The  psychological  and  logical  relation  of  processes  and  products — The  critical, 
or  speculative,  application  of  knowledge.  $  49.  Order  of  intellectual  develop- 
ment, growth  and  studies.  g  50.  Principles  of  classifying  the  powers  of  the  in- 
tellect. §  51.  The  presentative  faculty.  §  52.  The  representative  faculty.  §  53. 
Thought,  or  intelligence — Two  aspects  or  forms  of  thought. 


CONTENTS.  Vll 


THE  HUMAN  INTELLECT. 


PART  FIRST. 

PRESENTATION  AND   PEESENTATIVE   KNOWLEDGE. 

PAGE 

I.— CONSCIOUSNESS— NATURAL  CONSCIOUSNESS.         .  .    61 

§  54.  Consciousness  defined.  Variously  applied.  §  55.  Two  forms  of  con- 
sciousness. §  56.  Natural  consciousness  as  an  act.  §  57.  Consciousness  the  ob- 
ject. §  58.  Relation  of  consciousness  to  each  of  the  elements  of  a  psychical 
state,  g  59.  The  activity  may  be  chiefly  noticed.  $  60.  Consciousness  of  the 
ego.  %  61.  The  relation  of  consciousness  to  the  objects  of  psychical  activity. 
$  62.  The  object  of  consciousness  is  a  state  of  being — Special  sense  of  cogito,  ergo 
sum.  $  63.  The  validity  of  relations  is  also  established.  $  64.  The  development 
and  growth  of  consciousness.  §  65.  Latent  modifications  of  consciousness. 

II. — THE  REFLECTIVE,  on  PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSCIOUSNESS.    .    78 

3  66.  The   reflective   consciousness    defined — The   abnormal   consciousness    in 
& 

children  and  adults — The  ethical  consciousness.  $  67.  The  scientific  reflective 
consciousness.  Characterized  by  persistent  attention.  §  68.  It  attends  to  all  the 
psychical  phenomena.  $  69.  Compares  and  classifies  them,  g  70.  Interprets  and 
explains  them  by  powers  and  laws.  $  71.  Relations  of  the  philosophical  to  the 
natural  consciousness.  $  72.  Office  of  language  in  respect  to  each — The  language 
of  common  life  sometimes  the  most  trustworthy.  §  73.  The  actions  of  men  also 
an  important  test  of  truth.  §  74.  Conditions  of  reaching  the  decisions  of  con- 
sciousness. $  75.  Uncertainty  and  slow  progress  of  psychology  explained.  §  76. 
Peculiar  difficulties  in  the  study  of  the  soul. 

III.— SENSE-PERCEPTION:  THE  CONDITIONS  AND  THE  PROCESS.    93 

§  77.  Sense-perception  defined  and  distinguished — Is  developed  earliest  of  all 
the  powers — Seems  to  be  the  most  familiar.  Is  not  the  most  easily  understood — 
Distinguished  from  other  mental  acts — Knowledge  of  matter  not  gained  by  sense- 
perception— What  are  acts  of  sense-perception  ?— Knowledge  that  is  gained  by 
sense-perception — Results  of  analysis.  Eight  topics  proposed.  §  78.  The  con- 
ditions enumerated.  The  first  condition — The  nervous  system.  The  sensorium — 
The  reflex  action  of  the  nerves.  §  78  a.  The  second  condition  is  an  object  or  ex- 
citant, g  79.  The  third  condition.  Its  action  on  the  sensorium.  $  80.  The 
process  of  sense-perception  in  the  simplest  form;  What  is  it? — It  is  psychical,  not 
physiological — It  is  complex  of  two  elements — The  elements  unequal  in  energy ; 
in  the  same,  and  the  different  senses.  $  81.  Sensation  proper  pertains  to  the  soul, 
g  82.  Yet  experienced  by  the  soul  connected  with  an  organism.  $  83.  The  sensa- 
tions localized.  §  84.  Differ  from  one  another  in  quality  and  definiteness,  §  85. 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

Perception  proper,  an  act  of  pure  knowledge.  $  86.  Its  object  a  non-ego.  What 
kind  of  a  non-ego.  §  87.  An  extended  non-ego.  $  88.  Perception  attends  all  the 
sensations — The  extension  and  externality  of  all  objects  not  given  with  equal 
clearness.  §  89.  The  varying  relations  of  sensation  and  perception  proper — In 
different  sensations  of  the  same  sense — In  the  different  senses. 

IV. — CLASSES  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTIONS 109 

§  90.  Three  classes  of  sense-perceptions.  The  muscular.  $  91.  The  organic, 
g  92.  The  special  sense-perceptions.  Smell]  its  organ,  conditions,  and  objects. 
§  93.  Taste:  organs  and  objects.  Variety  of  the  sensations.  §94  Hearing;  its 
organ  and  objects — The  sensations  various.  In  what  respects  distinguishable — 
Sounds  in  succession  and  combination.  Melody  and  harmony — The  condition  of 
oral  language.  Expressive  of  feeling.  $  95.  The  sense  of  touch.  Its  organ — 
Essential  condition  of  touch.  $  96.  Variety  of  sensations  involved  in  touch. 
Sensations  of  gentle  touch — Sensations  involving  violence  or  injury — Sensations 
of  temperature — Sensations  of  pressure  and  weight — The  muscular  sensations — 
Sensations  localized,  g  97.  Perceptions  proper  of  touch — Extension  perceived  by 
touch.  Not  explicable  by  extension  in  the  organism.  $  98.  The  perception  of 
externality  by  touch — Two  meanings  of  externality — Externality  in  the  first  sig- 
nification— Objection  answered.  $  99.  Sense  of  touch  the  leading  sense — Fur- 
nishes intellectual  terms.  $  100.  Sight;  its  organ  and  the  conditions  of  vision — 
Function  of  the  image  on  the  retina — Sensations  proper  of  vision.  $  101.  Per- 
ception proper  in  vision.  The  object  of  vision — Is  always  extended — Visible  ex- 
tension superficial  only — A  single  object  seen  with  two  eyes — Original  place  of 
the  visible  percept.  $  102.  Dignity  of  the  eye. 

V. — THE  ACQUIRED  SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.         .        .        .        .    132 

$  103.  The  sense-perceptions,  as  original  and  acquired — Importance  and  time 
of  gaining  the  acquired  perceptions.  §  104.  The  acquired  perceptions  of  smell 
and  hearing.  $  105.  Acquired  perceptions  of  sight.  Distance  judged  by  size — 
Judgments  of  magnitudes  by  distance — Judgments  of  distance  by  color,  outline, 
clearness,  etc. — Judgments  of  size  by  other  equidistant  objects — Influence  of  In- 
termediate objects.  §  106.  Judgments  of  form,  etc.,  by  sight.  $  107.  Acquired 
sense-perceptions  of  place,  motion  and  expression  within  the  body — The  provi- 
sions of  nature  for  these  ends — The  control  by  the  intellect  of  these  arrangements 
— How  we  learn  to  talk  and  to  walk — Feats  of  dexterity.  Expressional  eifects. 
§  108.  The  errors  of  the  senses  explained.  $  109.  The  acquired  perceptions  as 
forms  .of  knowledge — They  involve  induction — Objections  from  the  cases  of  ani- 
mals— Reasons  why  the  perceptions  of  animals  and  of  man  should  differ. 

VI.— DEVELOPMENT  AND  GROWTH  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION,  .    150 

§  110.  Nature,  interest,  and  difficulty  of  the  problem.  $  111.  The  intellect, 
condition  of  the,  before  sense-perception  begins — The  beginnings  and  development 
of  attention.  §  112.  The  order  in  which  the  perceptions  are  developed.  §  113. 
The  development  of  touch — Hamilton's  theory  of  the  perception  of  the  extra  • 
organic.  §  114.  Development  of  vision.  $  115.  Combination  of  touch  and  vision 
— Observations  upon  infants.  §  116.  The  blind  from  birth,  upon  the  recovery  of 
Sight. 


CONTENTS.  IX 


VII.  —  THE  PRODUCTS  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION;  OR,  THE  PER- 

CEPTION OF  MATERIAL  THINGS  .....      165 

§  117.  Material  things  and  sense-percepts.  §  117  a.  The  first  stage  of  percep- 
tion; limited  to  coincidence  in  space  and  time.  §118.  The  second  stage:  The 
relation  of  substance  and  attribute  —  This  relation  supposes  reflex  and  indirect 
knowledge.  §  119.  The  conditions  of  complete  perception.  §  120.  Can  we  attend 
to  more  than  one  thing  at  a  time  ? 

VIII.  —  ACTIVITY  OF  THE  SOUL  IN  SENSE-PERCEPTION  .        .    180 

§  121.  Sense-perception  held  by  many  to  be  passive  only  —  Grounds  on  which 
the  theory  rests.  §  122.  Evidence  that  the  soul  is  active.  §  123.  Different  modes 
of  this  activity  —  Is  elementary,  and  easily  exercised. 

SENSE-PERCEPTION:  SUMMARY  AND  REVIEW.         .        .        .187 

IX.  —  THEORIES  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION  .....        189 

§  125.  Interest  of  the  theories  and  their  history.  §  126.  The  early  Greek  phil- 
osophers —  Aristotle.  §  127.  The  schoolmen.  Their  doctrine  of  species.  §  128. 
Descartes,  Malebranche,  and  Arnauld.  §  129.  John  Locke.  §  130.  Bishop 
George  Berkeley,  David  Hume.  $  131.  T.  Reid,  Dugald  Stewart,  Dr.  T.  Brown. 
§  132.  Sir  William  Hamilton.  §  133.  Iminanuel  Kant,  and  the  German  school. 


PART  SECOND. 

REPRESENTATION   AND   REPRESENTATIVE   KNOWLEDGE. 

I. — THE  REPRESENTATIVE  POWER  DEFINED  AND  EXPLAINED.    206 

§  134.  Representation  defined  and  illustrated.  §  135.  Appellations  for  the 
power.  §136.  Objects  of  the  representative  power.  §137.  These  objects  involve 
relations.  §  138.  Conditions  and  laws  of  representation  considered.  §  139. 
Representation  divided  into  several  varieties.  §  140.  Interest  and  importance 
of  the  representative  power. 

II.— THE   REPRESENTATIVE   OBJECT— ITS   NATURE  AND  IM- 
PORTANCE  21& 

§  111.  Why  the  object  of  representation  needs  special  discussion.  §  142.  It  is 
a  pyschical  object.  §  143.  It  is  a  transient  and  short-lived  object.  §  144.  It  is 
an  intellectual  object.  §  145.  The  relation  can  be  compared  to  no' other.  §  146. 
Representative  ideas  of  objects  of  consciousness  and  sense-perception  do  not  re- 
semble them.  Memory.  §  147.  Positive  characteristics  of  mental  pictures.  §  148. 
In  thought,  we  prefer  ideas  to  realities.  §  149.  Ideas  especially  useful  in  com- 
parison and  generalization.  ^  150.  Images  prepare  for  and  aid  to  action* 


X  CONTENTS. 

TAG1 

III. — THE  CONDITIONS  AND  LAWS  OF  EEPRESENTATION — THE 

ASSOCIATION  OF  IDEAS ,225 

§  151.  Association  of  ideas.  Importance  and  interest  of  the  subject.  §  152. 
Laws  of  .association.  §  153.  Association  not  explained  by  bodily  organization. 
§  154.  The  laws  of  association  cannot  be  referred  to  any  attractive  power  in 
ideas  as  such.  §  155.  Nor  into  the  force  of  relations  as  such — Are  not  other 
relations  supposable?  $156.  The  law  of  redintegration.  §157.  The  real  expla- 
nation. How  enounced — Associations  with  home.  §  158.  The  secondary  laws 
denned — How  far  reducible  to  the  same  principle  with  the  primary.  §  159. 
Apparent  exceptions  to  the  law  of  association.  §  160.  Representation  unceas- 
ingly active.  How  it  can  be  interrupted.  §  161.  Law  of  association  and  law 
of  habit.  §  162.  Higher  and  lower  laws  of  association. 

IV. — EEPRESENTATION. — (1.)  THE  MEMORY,  OR  EECOGNIZING 

FACULTY 254 

§  163.  The  elements  essential  to  an  act  of  memory.  §  164.  Memory  techni- 
cally defined.  Belation  of  memory  to  representation.  §  165.  The  spontaneous 
memory.  §  165  a.  The  intentional  memory.  §  166.  Memory  as  the  power  to 
retain,  and  to  lose.  §  167.  Dependence  on  the  body.  §  168.  Varieties  of  me  n- 
ory;  how  explained — Development  of  memory.  Its  characteristics  in  the  several 
periods  of  life.  $  169.  The  education  of  the  memory.  §  170.  The  cultivation  of 
the  memory;  mnemonics. 

V. — EEPRESENTATION. — (2.)    THE    PHANTASY,    OR    IMAGING 

POWER 278 

§  171.  Phantasy  defined  and  illustrated.  §  172.  The  interest  of  its  problems — 
The  power  of  association  is  operative  in  them  all — Deviations  accounted  for.  (1.) 
By  changes  in  the  relative  proportion  of  the  powers.  §  173.  Sleep  physiolog- 
ically considered.  §  174.  Sleep  considered  psychologically.  §  175.  Somnambu- 
lism, or  abnormal  sleep.  §176.  Hallucinations,  apparitions,  etc.  §177.  Insanity. 

VI. — EEPRESENTATION. — (3.)  THE  IMAGINATION  OR  CREATIVE 

POWER 295 

§  178.  Conditions  and  materials  common  to  the  imagination.  §  179.  Tho 
power  of  the  imagination  to  create  new  products.  §  ISO.  The  combining  and 
arranging  office  of  the  imagination.  §  181.  The  idealization  of  the  relations  of 
space  and  time  in  art,  and  mathematical  science.  §  182.  3.  The  formation  of  an 
ideal  standard  for  psychical  acts  and  states.  §  183.  The  imagination  is  capable 
of  growth  and  culture.  §  184.  Is  developed  from  the  earliest  till  the  latest 
periods  in  life.  §  185.  Special  applications  of  the  imagination.  The  poetic 
imagination.  •  §  186.  Its  medium  is  language.  §  187.  The  philosophic  imagina- 
tion. \  188.  The  practical  and  ethical  imagination.  $  189.  Relation  of  the  im- 
agination to  religious  faith. 


CONTENTS.  XI 


PART  THIRD. 

THOUGHT  AND  THOUGHT-KNOWLEDGE. 

PAGE 

I. — THOUGHT-KNOWLEDGE  DEFINED  AND  EXPLAINED.     .     .    319 

§  190.  Thinking  and  the  thought  power  denned,  g  191.  Appellations  for  the 
power  of  thinking,  etc.  $  192.  Relation  of  thought  to  the  lower  powers.  §  193. 
Concrete  and  abstract  thinking.  §  194.  Relations  of  thought  to  language. 

II. — THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  CONCEPT  OR  NOTION.      .      .     327 

§  195.  The  processes  involved  in  forming  the  concept.  §  196.  The  product,  its 
nature  and  appellation,  g  197.  Concepts  as  concrete  and  abstract,  as  simple  and 
complex ;  their  content  and  extent.  §  198.  Classification,  its  origin  and  different 
species.  $  199.  How  much  do  we  gain  by  knowing  by  concepts.  §  200.  Relation 
of  knowledge  by  concepts  and  by  intuitions. 

III.— THE  NATURE  OF  THE  CONCEPT.— SKETCH  OF  THEORIES.     339 

§  291.  The  doctrines  of  Socrates  and  Plato,  and  Aristotle.  §  202.  Porphyry's 
questions  and  the  scholastics.  $  203.  Modern  Philosophers — G.  W.  Leibnitz. 
I  204.  G.  W.  F.  Hegel. 

IV.— THE  NATURE  OF  THE  CONCEPT. — GENERAL  NAMES. — 

LANGUAGE 45 

§  205.  Essential  characteristics  of  the  concept.  §  206.  How  far  the  concep- 
tualist  and  nominalist  are  both  right.  §  207.  The  imaging  of  concepts — Differ- 
ent images  illustrate  the  same  concept.  §  208.  The  truth  represented  by  realism 
—The  classifications  of  Botany.  §  209.  Value  of  naming  and  of  language. 
§  210.  The  relation  of  symbolic  to  intuitive  knowledge. 

V. — JUDGMENT,  AND  THE  PROPOSITION 358 

§  211.  Judgment  implied  in  the  formation  and  use  of  the  concept.  $  212.  Judg- 
ments are  psychological  and  logical — How  the  subject  of  a  judgment  is  expressed 
in  language.  §  213.  The  Signification  of  the  copula.  §  214.  Classes  of  judg- 
ments. Judgments  of  content,  g  215.  Judgments  of  extent.  §  216.  Scientific 
and  common  knowledge. 

VI.— REASONING. — DEDUCTION  OF  MEDIATE  JUDGMENT.      .     3G6 

§  217.  Nature  anrl  importance  of  reasoning.  §  218.  Reasoning,  inductive  and 
deductive.  §  219.  The  forms  of  deduction.  $  220.  The  syllogism  not  a  but  the 
form  of  deduction.  §221.  The  dicta  or  formula  of  the  syllogism.  $222.  Deduc- 
tion rests  on  the  relation  of  reason  to  consequent.  $  223.  The  relation  of  logical 
reasons  to'  cause  and  laws,  g  224.  Geometrical  reasons. 

VII. — REASONING.— VARIETIES  OF  DEDUCTION.         .        .        373 

§  225.  The  varieties  are  three;  these  subdivided.  $  226.  Probable  reasoning. 
$  227.  Mathematical  reasoning,  materials  of.  g  228.  Definitions  and  axioms. 
\  229.  The  construction  of  geometrical  figures.  Auxiliary  lines,  etc.  g  230. 


Xll  CONTENTS. 

Geometrical  reasoning  explained  by  an  example.  $  231.  Immediate  syllogisms. 
§  232.  Two  elements  in  most  acts  of  deduction,  g  233.  Deduction  adds  to  our 
knowledge.  In  what  sense  ? 

VIII.— INDUCTIVE  EEASONING  OR  INDUCTION.      .        .        .      391 

$  234.  Inductions  properly  and  improperly  so-called.  §  235.  Inductions  of 
common  life  and  inductions  of  science.  §  236.  Why  are  the  indications  of  science 
more  difficult?  §  287.  The  a  priori  relations  assumed  in  induction.  $  238.  The 
three  rules  of  induction.  $  239.  The  conditions  of  a  successful  hypothesis  and 
discovery,  g  240.  The  choice  between  hypotheses.  $  241.  The  place  of  experi- 
ment. 

IX.— SCIENTIFIC  ARRANGEMENT.— THE  SYSTEM.         .        .      416 

$  242.  Scientific  arrangement.  System  in  its  lower  import.  $  243.  System 
in  its  higher  significance. 


PART  FOURTH. 

INTUITION. — THE   CATEGORIES. — FIRST   PRINCIPLES. 

I. — THE  INTUITIONS  DEFINED  AND  ENUMERATED.        .        .     419 

§  244.  The  critical  and  speculative  stage  of  our  studies — They  have  bee.'i  re- 
ferred to  a  separate  faculty — The  appellations  by  which  they  are  known.  §  245. 
Not  first  in  the  order  of  time,  but  in  logical  importance — They  are,  in  facf,  at- 
tained last  in  the  order  of  time,  g  246.  Various  significations  of  a  principle. 
§  247.  The  relation  of  intuition  to  experience.  $  248.  The  Three  Criteria  of  Mrst 
Truths,  g  249.  They  are  independent  of  one  another — Hegel's  development  of 
the  categories,  g  250.  Divided  into  three  classes.  • 

II. — THEORIES  OF  INTUITIVE  KNOWLEDGE.      .        .        .        433 

g  251.  The  theory  of  a  direct  mental  vision  of  first  truths.  3  252.  The  theory 
that  they  are  discerned  by  the  light  of  nature.  $  253.  That  they  arc  innate  or 
connate.  $  254.  The  views  of  Locke  and  his  school.  $  255.  Dr.  Reid  and  the 
Scottish  School.  §  256.  Kant  and  his  School.  $  257.  Hamilton's  Positive  and 
Negative  Necessity.  §  258.  The  theory  of  Faith  as  contrasted  with  knowledge. 
§  259.  J.  G.  Fichte.  §  260.  Schelling's  view  of  the  categories.  §  261.  Hegel's 
theory  of  pure  thought.  $  262.  Herbart's  theory. 

III. — FORMAL  EELATIONS  OR  CATEGORIES.         .       .       .        446 

§  263.  The  category  of  being.— In  what  sense  fundamental.  %  264.  The  most 
abstract  of  all  the  categories.  §  265.  Is  indefinable  and  indeterminate.  $  266. 
Relationship.  Diversity  and  similarity. — Relative  notions.  Negative  notions. 
§  267.  Substance  and  attribute  formally  conceived.  §  268.  The  logical  axioms 
of  identity,  eto. 


CONTENTS.  X1H 

PAGE 

IV.— MATHEMATICAL  RELATIONS:  TIME  AND  SPACE.        .       454 

§  269.  Development  of  the  several  relations  of  extension.  $  270.  Duration, 
how  related  to  the  acts  of  the  soul.  $  271.  The  mind  discerns  extended  and  en- 
during objects  together,  g  272.  Limitations  of  sense-perception.  §  273.  Beyond 
these  we  use  the  imagination.  §  274.  Measures  of  time-objects  are  imaginary. — 
Different  capacities  in  different  men. — Differences  in  the  estimates  of  time. — 
Whence  standards  for  both  epace  and  time  are  derived.  §  275.  How  the  relations 
of  space  and  time  objects  are  generalized.  $  276.  Two  classes  of  mathematical 
concepts.  The  geometrical. — Postulates  of  geometrical  quantity,  g  277.  The 
concepts  of  number.  $  278.  The  application  of  number  to  magnitude.  $  279. 
Why,  and  how  mathematical  concepts  are  applicable  to  material  objects.  $  280. 
Time  and  space  relations  can  be  still  further  generalized.  $  281.  Extended  and 
enduring  objects  are  limited.  $  282.  Extension  and  duration  distinguished  from, 
but  related  to  space  and  time.  §  283.  They  limit  objects  and  events,  g  284. 
In  what  sense  space  and  time  are  unlimited.  $  285.  Space  and  Time  cannot  be 
generalized  under  higher  concepts.  $  286.  They  are  known  as  the  conditions  of 
their  limited  correlates.  $  287.  What  are  space  and  time  ?  Conclusion. 

V.— CAUSATION  AND  THE  RELATION  OF  CAUSALITY.       -.        480 

g  289.  Causation  as  a  law,  and  as  a  principle.  §  290.  Event  defined,  g  291. 
Cause  distinguished  from  conditions.  §  292.  The  relation  cannot  be  resolved  into 
a  time-relation.  $  293.  The  principle  of  causality  intukively  evident.  $  294. 
Counter  theories.  The  belief  not  acquired  by  induction  or  association.  §  295. 
Not  resolvable  into  outward  or  inner  experience,  or  both.  Locke  and  De  Biran. 
§  296.  The  theory  which  resolves  causality  into  a  relation  of  concepts,  g  297. 
Hamilton's  theory  of  causation. — Conclusion.  Our  position  re-affirmed. 

VI.— DESIGN  OF  FINAL  CAUSE 498 

$  298.  Terms  explained.  Formal,  material,  efficient,  and  final  causes.  $  299. 
Design  and  adaptation,  how  related,  g  300.  The  relation  assumed  as  necessary 
and  a  priori.  $  301.  Reasons.  The  mind  impelled  to  connect  objects  by  this 
relation.  §  302.  The  relation  is  higher  than  that  of  efficient  causation.  §  303. 
The  principle  has  been  of  essential  service  in  scientific  discovery.  §  304.  The 
foundation  of  the  inductive  philosophy.  §  305.  Required  to  explain  the  pheno- 
mena of  organic  existences,  g  306.  Relation  of  final  to  efficient  causes  in  the 
higher  orders  of  being,  g  307.  Objections:  (1.)  Men  mistake  in  their  judgments 
about  final  causes.  §  308.  (2.)  Our  interpretations  can  neither  be  tested  nor  con- 
firmed. $  309.  (3.)  This  relation  derived  from  conscious  experience. — The  rela- 
tion unquestioned  in  some  applications.-  §  310.  (4.)  Two  principles  introduced 
into  philosophy  which  may  possibly  conflict.  $  311.  (5.)  The  search  after  final 
causes  has  hindered  discovery.  $  312.  (6.)  The  adaptations  of  nature  are  only 
the  conditions  of  existence,  g  313.  (7.)  Adaptation  is  limited  to  organic  exist- 
ence. §  314.  (8.)  We  are  not  warranted  in  affirming  it  of  all  kinds  of  existence, 
g  315.  (9.)  Adaptation  cannot  be  affirmed  of  an  unlimited  Being,  g  316.  The 
principle  is  illustrated  and  confirmed  by  its  application  to  metaphysics.  §  317. 
Applied  in  geometrical  construction  and  deduction.  \  318.  Applied  in  geology, 
etc.  §  319.  Applied  in  geography  and  history ;  §  320.  Also  in  comparative  an 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

tomy  and  physiology.  §  321.  Applied  in  anthropology; — In  the  provisions  for 
and  the  capacities  of  language,  g  322.  Application  to  psychology,  g  323.  Ap- 
plied and  assuumed  in  ethics,  g  324.  Application  to  theology. — The  common 
argument  for  the  Divine  existence. 

VII. — SUBSTANCE  AND  ATTRIBUTE:  MIND  AND  MATTER.     .     524 

g  325.  Uses  and  etymology  of  the  terms,  g  326.  Substance  and  attribute  in 
the  abstract.  §  327.  Spiritual  or  mental  substance,  g  328.  Material  substance 
denned.  §  329.  Space  occupation  and  identity  of  matter.  §  330.  The  produc- 
tion of  new  substances. — The  real  Essence  or  Thing  in  itself.  $331.  A  material 
substance  not  necessarily  independent. — Dogmas  that  seem  to  deny  permanence. 
§  332.  The  reciprocal  relations  of  material  and  spiritual  substance. — Mind  and 
matter  directly  and  indirectly  known.  $  333.  The  qualities  of  matter  as  primary 
and  secondary.  $  335.  Real  and  phenomenal  or  relative  knowledge. 

VIII.— THE  FINITE  AND  CONDITIONED. — THE  INFINITE  AND  ABSO- 
LUTE.           541 

§  336.  To  know,  a  limiting  process.  §  337.  'The  finite  universe ;  how  con- 
ceived. §  338.  The  import  of  the  terms  infinite  and  absolute,  g  339.  The  un- 
conditicneti.  is  the  non-conditioned. — Applied  to  quality  and  quantity,  g  340, 
The  absolute,  several  causes  of.  The  Hegelian  sense.  $  341.  What  is  not  truo 
of  the  absolute,  etc.  $  342.  The  absolute,  etc.,  are  knowable. — Views  of  Kant, 
Hamilton,  and  Mansel, — Herbert  Spencer  dissents  in  part.  $  343.  The  absolute 
apprehended  by  the  intellect.  $  344.  Not  know  exhaustively  or  adequately.— 
The  finite  universe  infinite  to  our  knowledge. — The  absolute  a  thinking  agent. 
|  345.  Must  be  assumed  to  explain  thought  and  science. 


INTRODUCTION. 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   THE   SOUL. 


I. 

PSYCHOLOGY   DEFINED  AND  VINDICATED. 

§  1.  PSYCHOLOGY  is  the  science  of  the  human  soul.      _ 

Psychology, 

The  appellation  is  of  comparatively  recent  use  by  and  kindred 
English  writers,  but  is  now  generally  accepted  as 
the  most  appropriate  term  to  denote  the  scientific  knowledge  of 
the  whole  soul,  as  distinguished  from  a  single  class  of  its  endow- 
ments or  functions.  The  terms  in  frequent  use— mental  philoso- 
phy, the  philosophy  of  the  mind,  intellectual  philosophy,  etc. — should 
be  strictly  limited  to  a  single  power  of  the  soul,  i.  e.,  its  power  to 
know,  and  should  never  be  extended  to  its  capacity  to  feel 
and  to  will,  or  to  all  its  endowments  collectively.  The  terms 
metaphysics  and  philosophy,  when  used  without  an  adjunct,  can- 
not designate  any  special  science,  but  only  one  which  is  general 
and  fundamental  to  all  the  sciences,  both  material  and  psychical. 

§  2,  Psychology  is  a  science.     It  professes  to  exhi- 
bit what  is  actually  known  or  may  be  learned  con-     psaysden!S ** 
cerning  the  soul,  in  the  forms  of  science — i.  e.,  in  the 
forms  of  exact  observation,  precise  definition,  fixed  terminology, 
classified  arrangement,  and  rational  explanation. 

It  is  the  science  of  the  soul;  i.  e.,  the  science  which  has  the  soul 
for  its  subject-matter.  Soul  differs  from  spirit  as  the  species  from 
the  genus ;  soul  being  limited  to  a  spirit  that  either  is  or  has  been 
connected  with  a  body  or  material  organization ;  while  spirit  may 
also  be  applied  to  a  being  that  has  at  present  no  such  connec- 
tion, or  is  believed  never  to  have  had  any. 

The  term  soul  originally  signified  the  principle  of  life  or  mo« 

1 


2  INTRODUCTION.  §  3 

tion  in  a  material  organism.  It  was  especially  appropriated  to 
the  vital  principle  which  was  supposed  to  animate  the  body, 
whether  in  man  or  the  lower  animals.  This  signification  is  appa- 
rent in  the  threefold  division  of  man  into  body,  soul,  and  spirit, 
in  which  the  soul  occupies  the  place  between  the  corporeal  ele- 
ment, and  the  spiritual.  This  intermediate  part  was  sometimes 
called  the  animal  soul,  and  was  believed  to  perish  with  the  body. 
Hence,  the  term  spirit  was  applied  to  a  nature  that  had  never 
been  fixed  in  a  body,  or  soiled  and  degraded  by  connection  with 
it.  But  in  the  New  Testament,  ^>o/uo<; — psychical — is  often  applied 
to  the  body  _a  the  sense  of  animal,  to  distinguish  it  from  the 
spiritual  body.  We  recognize  somewhat  of  the  earlier  and 
lower  meaning  in  the  phrases,  "The  soul  of  the  universe,"  "  The 
soul  of  a  plant,"  "  The  soul  of  an  enterprise  or  interest ;"  i.  e.  the 
animating  principle  of  the  universe,  etc.,  etc. 

§  3.  Psychology  is  distinguished  from  physiology 
anthropology.  Both  these  sciences  have  man  as 
and  anthro-  their  subject.  Physiology  studies  man  as  a  material 
organism ;  distinguishing  the  several  organs  of  which 
it  is  composed,  the  special  functions  of  each,  and  the  combined 
activity  of  all  in  a  living  being.  It  is  true  the  structure  and 
arrangement  of  some  of  these  organs  cannot  be  explained  without 
a  distinct  recognition  of  their  relations  to  a  spiritual  agent.  But 
while  physiology  must  recognize  the  functions  of  the  soul,  it  need 
only  consider  those  phenomena  which  are  familiarly  known.  For 
all  its  purposes,  the  knowledge  and  the  terminology  of  com- 
mon life  are  entirely  sufficient ;  as  when  physiology  explains  the 
structure  of  the  eye,  the  ear,  and  the  hand,  by  their  relations  to 
human  vision  and  hearing,  to  tactual  or  mechanical  skill.  Its 
principal  and  almost  exclusive  sphere  is  the  bodily  structure  and 
functions,  as  phenomena  that  can  be  explained  with  reference  to 
the  animal  economy,  and  the  conditions  of  bodily  development 
and  life. 

Anthropology,  as  the  term  imports,  treats  of  the  whole  man,  as 
body  and  soul.  It  differs  from  psychology  in  treating  of  these 
factors  when  combined  so  as  to  form  one  product  in  many  varie- 
ties. Of  this  product  it  gives  the  natural  history.  It  investigates 
man  as  this  complex  whole,  as  varied  in  temperament,  race,  sex, 
and  age;  and  as  affected  by  climate,  employment,  or  a  more 


§  5.  PSYCHOLOGY   DEFINED   AND   VINDICATED.  3 

or  less  perfect  civilization.  It  inquires  how  man  is  formed 
and  changed  in  body  and  soul  by  inherited  peculiarities  and 
accidental  circumstances.  It  discusses  the  influence  of  the 
soul  upon  the  body  and  the  influence  of  the  body  on  the  soul, 
whether  in  the  normal  or  the  abnormal  states  and  functions  of 
3ach.  But  it  notices  and  records  these  phenomena,  only  so  far 
as  they  are  open  to  general  observation  and  require  no  scientific 
analysis  or  explanation.  To  psychology  it  leaves  the  special  and 
profound  study  of  the  soul  ;  to  physiology,  the  more  thorough 
examination  of  the  functions  of  the  body. 

§  4.  Psychology  is  distinguished  still  further  from 
physiology  in  that  the  phenomena  with  which  it  has    its  phenomena 

i  i,       J    J  i\  •  -LM          i          known  by  con- 

to  do  are  apprehended  by  consciousness  ;  while    the 


phenomena  «f  physiology  are  discerned  by  the  senses. 
Psychology  proceeds  on  the  assumption  that  certain  facts  or 
phenomena  may  be  known  by  the  soul  concerning  itself.  The 
power  of  the  soul  to  know  itself  and  its  own  states  is  termed  con- 
sciousness. How  the  soul  gains  this  knowledge,  and  what  are  the 
nature,  the  varieties,  and  the  aids  of  consciousness,  will  be  con- 
sidered in  the  proper  place. 

That  the  soul  does  know  itself,  and  confides  in  the  knowledge 
thus  attained,  will  be  acknowledged  by  every  one.  The  facts 
differ  greatly  from  those  which  we  observe  by  hearing,  seeing, 
and  touching.  They  are  very  numerous  and  various  in  their 
quality,  differing  from  each  other  in  important  features,  and  yet 
having  this  feature  in  common,  that  they  are  known  by  the  soul 
to  which  they  pertain,  and  known  to  belong  to  itself. 

§  5.  These  phenomena,  so  numerous  and  peculiar, 
excite  the  desire  and  effort  to  reduce  them  to  the  ex-    Its  phenomena 

-,  n      .        .  n  impel  to  scien« 

actness  and  symmetry  ot  scientific  knowledge.     That    tine  study. 
they  actually  occur,  cannot  be  questioned.     No  one 
doubts,  or  cares  to  deny,  that  he  thinks  and  remembers,  that 
he  hopes  and  fears.     They  are  the  most  interesting  of  all  events 
to  the  individual  who  experiences  them.     The  knowledge  and 
the  imaginings,  the  hopes  and  fears,  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  each 
person,  make  up  the  most  important  part  of  his  being.     They 
also  go  very  far  in  deciding  our  success  or  failure  in  life.     What 
we  accomplish  in  our  acts  and  achievements,  depends  most  of  all 
on  what  we  are  in  our  thoughts  and  aspirations,  in  our  plans  and 


4  INTRODUCTION.  §  6 

energy.  The  mind,  which  we  know  so  well,  is  ever  at  our  hand 
as  the  instrument  with  which  we  execute  our  purposes  aud  direct 
our  acts.  The  soul  within  us  is  the  well-spring  ever  open  at  our 
door  and  springing  up  at  our  feet,  from  which  we  draw  our  most 
satisfying  joys  and  our  bitterest  sorrows.  Phenomena  like  these 
.are  the  legitimate  objects  of  those  scientific  inquiries  to  which  we 
are  so  powerfully  impelled.  The  phenomena  which  are  so  near 
us  at  all  times,  which  intrude  themselves  upon  our  attention 
even  when  we  desire  to  exclude  them, — which  constitute  the  world 
within,  to  which  the  man  himself  alone  has  access,  but  which  is 
yet,  to  him,  more  important  than  all  the  world  without — deserve 
to  be  studied,  and,  if  possible,  to  be  scientifically  classified  .and 
accounted  for. 

§  6.  It  may  seem  needless  to  dwell  up^n  the  value 
value  of  Psy-  of  psychological  studies.  They  are  peculiar  in  this, 
promotes3™  if-  that,  to  whatever  power  of  the  soul  they  are  directed, 
m™micu?ture.d  they  require  and  strengthen  the  habit  of  self-know- 
ledge. No  real  knowledge  of  the  soul  can  be  gained 
except  by  turning  the  gaze  inward.  Each  student  must  do  this 
himself,  for  no  one  can  do  it  for  another.  Books  and  instructors, 
essays,  poetry  and  the  drama,  cannot  describe  or  teach  that 
which  is  not  confirmed  by  the  researches  of  the  learner  within  his 
own  spirit.  For  the  man  who  is  disposed  to  reflect,  they  can  do 
much,  by  instructing  him  where  and  how  to  look ;  but  to  him 
who  will  not  converse  with  himself,  they  can  impart  no  instruc- 
tion ;  they  must  speak  in  an  unknown  tongue.  They  cannot  cre- 
ate conceptions  in  the  mind  that  will  not  verify  them  in  its  own 
experience. 

This  discipline  to  reflection,  with  the  habits  which  it  forms,  is 
the  condition  of  self-control.  He  that  studies  his  own  powers, 
may  learn  how  to  direct  and  use  them.  It  also  lays  the  founda- 
tion for  moral  self-improvement.  He  that  would  improve  his 
character,  must  first  know  what  his  character  is.  He  must  dis- 
cover what  are  his  better  and  what  his  worse  impulses ;  what  are 
the  points  at  which  he  is  most  easily  assailed,  and  by  what  sensi- 
bilities or  emotions  he  can  most  readily  rally  his  forces  and  over- 
come their  assailants.  With  self-improvement,  self-government 
is  intimately  associated.  He  that  would  make  himself  better, 
must  learn  to  set  himself  over  agaiust  himself  as  his  own  master. 


§  6.  PSYCHOLOGY   DEFINED   AND   VINDICATED.  5 

repressing  the  evil,  and  educing  and  encouraging  the  good.  But 
he  that  would  rule  himself,  must  first  know  himself.  "  Know 
thyself,"  was  written  over  the  portal  at  Delphi.  It  was  inculcated 
by  Socrates,  that  preeminent  teacher  of  practical  ethics,  who, 
measuring  every  species  of  knowledge  by  its  tendency  to  make 
man  better,  regarded  this  maxim  as  the  summary  of  wisdom. 
We  ougrht  not  to  omit  the  peculiar  grace  and 

Disciplines  to 

charm  which  is  imparted  to  tne  character  by  that  in  oral  refleo 
moral  reflection  which  is  the  natural  result  of  self- 
acquaintance.  To  learn  to  put  ourselves  in  the  condition  of 
others,  by  imagining  what  would  be  our  expectations  and  what 
our  feelings  were  we  in  their  place,  not  only  disciplines  and 
guides  to  that  common  justice  which  the  laws  enjoin,  and  to  that 
unselfish  morality  which  the  Golden  Rule  prescribes,  but  it  is 
the  secret  of  that  considerate  sympathy  and  refined  courtesy 
which  invest  with  a  peculiar  attractiveness  a  few  superior 
natures.  It  is  by  this  process  that  we  learn  to  clothe  the  severe 
form  of  allegiance  to  duty  with  the  graceful  robe  of  unselfish, 
sympathetic,  and  divine  charity. 

Dr.  Thomas  Arnold  was  accustomed  to  make  much  of  what 
he  called   "  moral   thoughtfulness,"  as  the  trait    of   character 
which  he  desired  most  of  all  to  perfect  in  his  pupils,  and  which 
he  defined  as  "  the  inquiring  love  of  truth  going  along  with  the 
divine   love    of  goodness."      This   "  moral   thoughtfulness "   is  ( 
fostered  by  self-acquaintance,  when  prosecuted  with  the  honest  1 
purpose   of  self-improvement.      It  leads  to  a  wider  sympathy  j 
with  man  than  is  bounded  by  the  circle  of  acquaintances,  of   ' 
countrymen,  or  even  of  those  now  living.    It  conducts  the  thoughts 
backward  along  the  history  of  the  past,  and  forward  among  the 
problems  of  the  future.     From  this  enlarged  sympathy   arise 
more  hopeful  and  tolerant  views  of  present  evils,  a  firmer  faith 
in  the  purposes  of  Providence  and  the  prospects  and  progress  of 
man,  and  a  more  cautious  and  candid  estimate  of  the  excitements 
and  prejudices  which  attend  the  partisan  conflicts  of  the  passing 
hour.     Superior  natures,  in  all  situations  in  life,  have  ever  been 
reflective  natures.     When  the  opportunity  has  been  furnished, 
they  have  been  attracted  by  psychological  studies  and  fascinated 
by  the  mysteries  which  these  attempt  to  unveil  and  resolve. 


6  '  INTRODUCTION.  §  7 

§  7.  The  self-knowledge  which  psychology  fosters, 
Trains  to  the    and  to  which  it  insensibly  trains,  is  the  one  iiistru- 

kriowledge  of  J 

human  nature,  mentality  by  which  we  learn  to  understand  our  fel- 
low-men. The  sharp  and  searching  look  by  which 
one  man  sees  through  another,  and  reads  the  secret  which  he  is 
unwilling  to  confess,  is  attained  only  by  the  fine  and  subtle 
analysis  of  one's  self.  What  is  perceived,  is  only  external 
signs ;  as  words,  looks,  or  gestures.  To  the  thought,  the  feeling, 
the  purpose  which  they  suggest,  there  is  no  direct  access.  The 
only  thoughts  and  feelings  which  the  interpreter  can  know 
directly,  are  his  own  ;  and  it  is  by  a  close  and  habitual  study  of 
these  that  he  is  able  to  connect  them  with  the  signs  through 
•which  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  other  men  are  revealed. 

§  8.  If,  also,  we  would  know  our  fellow-men  to  do 

Is  indispen- 
sable to  educa-    them  good,  we  must  first  know  ourselves.     This  sug- 

tors.  . 

gests  the  important  service  which  psychology  may 
render  to  teachers  of  every  class.  It  is  the  office  of  the  teacher 
to  communicate  knowledge.  But  to  communicate  is  to  im- 
part, i.  e.,  to  awaken  in  the  mind  of  another — the  thoughts  which 
exist  in  the  mind  of  the  teacher.  Hence,  skill  in  the  method  or 
art  of  teaching,  as  distinguished  from  the  possession  of  knowledge, 
depends  almost  entirely  upon  the  power  of  a  man  to  measure  and 
judge  of  the  effect  of  his  instructions.  The  clear,  methodical, 
arid  satisfactory  communication  of  knowledge  follows  from  often 
asking,  What  truths  are  most  easily  and  naturally  received  at 
first,  or  as  the  foundations  for  others?  What  illustrations  and 
examples  are  most  pertinent  and  satisfactory  ?  What  degree  of 
repetition  and  inculcation  is  required  in  order  to  cause  the  in- 
struction to  remain  ?  How  can  individual  peculiarities  of  intellect 
be  successfully  addressed,  and,  if  need  be,  corrected  ?  Such  ques- 
tions can  only  find  answers  through  the  habits  and  knowledge 
which  come  from  intelligent  self-study. 

Education  is  even  more  than  the  communication  of  knowledge. 
It  includes  the  training  of  the  sensibilities,  which  are  the  springs 
of  action,  and  the  forming  and  fixing  of  the  character.  To  this 
the  knowledge  of  the  feelings  is  as  requisite  as  the  knowledge  of 
the  intellect,  and  it  is  attained  by  a  similar  method. 
Disciplines  for  S  9.  We  name  another  advantage  from  psycho- 

the  study  of  lit-     ,  „         ,, 

erature.  logical  study — the  training  which  it  ensures  for  the 


§  10.  PSYCHOLOGY   DEFINED   AND   VINDICATED.  7 

appreciation  and  enjoyment  of  literature,  and  the  increased 
facility  it  imparts  in  writing  that  which  may  be  worthy  to 
be  read.  The  great  masters  in  literature,  especially  in  poetry, 
fiction,  and  the  drama,  have  sounded  the  depths  of  the  human  \ 
soul.  They  have  studied  man  in  the  several  phases  which  his  \ 
being  assumes,  and  as  moved  by  the  many  varieties  of  human 
feeling  and  passion.  They  may  not  have  learned  the  technical 
names  which  are  given  to  his  capacities,  or  the  theories  which  ' 
have  been  formed  of  the  essence  and  powers  of  the  soul ;  but 
they  have  studied  its  thoughts  and  feelings  to  the  most  effectual 
purpose,  and  have  exhibited  the  results  of  their  studies  in  cha- 
racters of  surpassing  interest,  and  by  words  of  wondrous  power. 
From  their  works  the  student  of  psychology  may  find  most 
valuable  aid,  and,  to  enjoy  and  appreciate  them,  there  is  no 
study  which  is  so  useful  as  the  systematic  study  of  the  human 
soul,  with  the  habits  and  tastes  which  this  study  engenders.  No 
fact  is  better  attested  by  the  history  of  literature,  than  that  those 
trained  by  such  studies  enjoy  with  especial  zest  the  best  literary 
productions,  and  appreciate  them  more  keenly  than  any  other 
class  of  men.  Other  things  being  equal,  they  are  better  qualified 
to  criticise  them  fairly  and  intelligently. 

§    10.    Psychology     either    furnishes   or    makes 
known  the  first  principles  for  all  those  sciences  which         Psycnoiogy 

.  .  ,.  ,      '  the    motlu-r  of 

either   directly  or  remotely  relate  to  man — which    the  sciences 

,  .       ,     .  ,  .  .         .  which  relate  to 

concern  his  being,  his  aspirations  and   wants,  the    man. 
products  of  his  genius,  his  institutions,  his  studies, 
or  his  destiny.     It   is  from  psychology  that  all  these  sciences 
derive  their  definitions,  and  it  is  in  psychology  that  they  find 
the  evidence  for  their  truth.     They  all  begin  with  certain  pro- 
positions, which    they  assume    to    be   true.     If  their  truth   is 
questioned,  the  final  appeal  is  made  to  the  science  of  the  human 
soul,  as  the  highest  court,  beyond  which  there  can  be  no  resort. 

Thus  ethics,  or  the  science  of  human  duty,  sets  off  with  certain 
positions  in  respect  to  the  nature  of  man,  which  assert  that  he  is 
fitted  for  moral  action,  and  that  to  right  or  virtuous  activity  he 
is  impelled  by  the  most  sacred  obligations.  It  defines  conscience 
and  duty,  and  the  several  relations  of  man,  and  from  its  defini- 
tions derives,  by  logical  analysis  and  inference,  the  rules  and 
maxims  of  practical  ethics.  But  is  man  a  moral  being  ?  What 


8  INTRODUCTION.  §  10. 

is  it  to  be  capable  of  moral  activity  and  obligation  ?  Is  he 
endowed  with  conscience  ?  What  is  conscience  ?  These  questions 
are  all  questions  of  fact,  and  can  be  answered  only  by  the 
psychological  study  of  man. 

Political  and  social  science  also  assumes  that  man  is  a  social 
being,  and  that  he  is  formed  for  and  must  exist  in  organized 
society.  It  defines  the  rights  and  obligations  which  grow  out  of 
this  constitution.  But  is  man  thus  endowed  ?  and  what  is  he  as 
a  social  and  political  being  ?  Psychology  alone  can  answer. 

Law,  or  the  science  of  justice,  lays  down  as  its  axioms  certain 
assumptions  in  respect  to  the  authority  and  limits  of  govern- 
ment, for  the  truth  of  which  it  must  appeal  to  the  consciousness 
of  every  one  who  consults  his  own  inner  life.  This  science  is 
therefore  carried  back  step  by  step,  till  its  last  footstep  is  firmly 
fixed  in  psychology. 

^Esthetics,  or  the  science  of  criticism,  assumes  that  man  is 
pleased  with  the  beautiful  and  elevated  by  the  sublime ;  and 
that  he  can  form  distinct  conceptions  of  what  is  fitted  to  attract 
him  in  both.  From  these  conceptions  he  can  derive  rules  by 
which  to  try  and  measure  whatever  interests  him  in  literature, 
nature,  or  art.  The  canons  of  taste  are  in  the  last  analysis  re- 
solved by  facts  of  psychology. 

Theology  is  the  science  of  God,  of  man's  relations  to  God,  and 
of  the  will  of  God  as  made  known  to  man.  But  this  science, 
whatever  else  is  true  of  it,  must  assume  that  man  is,  in  his 
nature,  capable  of  religious  emotion  ;  as  also  that  he  believes  in 
God,  and  can  in  some  way  understand  His  character  and  His 
will.  What  man  believes,  and  how  he  comes  to  believe  it,  are 
in  great  part  to  be  explained  by  psychology.  Theology  must 
go  to  psychology  to  vindicate  its  primary  conceptions  and 
justify  its  elementary  principles.  The  science  of  religious 
faith  and  feeling  must,  so  far  as  it  is  a  science,  rest  on  psy- 
chology. 

By  these  considerations,  psychology  is  shown  to  be  the  com- 
mon parent  of  many  of  the  sciences.  To  every  one  of  these 
sciences  the  study  of  psychology  furnishes  the  necessary  ground- 
work, and  is  itself  the  necessary  and  appropriate  introduction 
for  the  thorough  understanding  and  orderly  development  of 
their  teachings. 


§  11.  PSYCHOLOGY   DEFINED  AND  VINDICATED.  9 

§  11.  To  logic  and  metaphysics,  psychology  stands 
in  a  peculiar  and  most  intimate  relation,  to  under-      its  special  r». 

i  •  •  •  •       i        -r»  lation  to    logic 

stand  which  special  consideration  is  required,  .rsy-  and  metapkys- 
chology,  in  one  aspect,  is  like  all  the  sciences  of 
nature,  a  science  of  observation ;  and  is  subject  to  those  rules 
of  investigation  and  evidence  which  logic  prescribes  as  common 
to  them  all.  We  study  the  soul  aright  when  we  collect  and 
lesolve  its  phenomena  according  to  the  inductive  method  ;  when 
we  reason  from  premises  to  conclusions;  when  we  infer,  by 
analogy  with  similar  phenomena;  and  when  we  arrange  our  pro- 
ducts in  the  order  and  beauty  of  a  complete  and  consistent  sys- 
tem. Hence  it  follows  that  psychology  though  necessarily,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  parent  and  director  of  many  sciences,  is  itself  in  a 
most  important  sense  subjected  to  logic  as  its  guide  and  law- 
giver. 

But  logic  is  itself  subject  to  another  science,  viz.,  metaphysics, 
or  speculative  philosophy,  inasmuch  as  this  is  the  science  of 
those  necessary  conceptions  and  fundamental  relations  on  which 
the  rules  and  the  processes  of  logic  are  founded.  Such  are  the 
conceptions  of  substance  and  attribute,  of  cause  and  effect,  of 
means  and  ends,  and  the  relations  of  inherence,  causation,  and 
design.  Unless  these  are  assumed,  the  concept,  the  judgment, 
the  syllogism,  the  inductive  process  and  the  system,  can  have  no 
meaning  and  no  application.  Psychology  is  therefore  subject  to 
logic  as  its  lawgiver,  and  logic  to  metaphysics  as  its  voucher. 

But  though,  in  the  order  of  thought  and  methodical  construc- 
tion, psychology  is  subject  to  these  sciences,  yet,  in  the  order  of 
time  and  of  acquisition,  psychology  is  before  both  of  them,  though 
they  are  fundamental  to  itself  and  to  all  the  other  sciences. 
"We  must,  in  a  certain  sense,  go  through  psychology  in  order  to 
reach  the  logic  by  which  we  study  psychology.  Logic  teaches 
the  laws  of  right  thinking.  But  what  is  it  to  think  ?  What  are 
the  processes  which  it  involves  ?  We  must  ask  these  questions, 
in  order  to  discover  and  prescribe  the  rules  of  thinking.  We 
can  answer  them  only  by  resorting  to  the  facts  which  psy- 
chology discloses.  Metaphysics  involves  the  original  conceptions 
which  appear  in  all  science,  and  the  ultimate  relations  which  are 
assumed  in  the  language  and  inquiries  of  all  the  special  philoso- 
phies. But  what  are  these  original  conceptions,  these  prime  re- 

1* 


10  INTRODUCTION.  §  12, 

lations,  these  categories,  of  which  every  particular  assertion  and 
every  actual  belief  is  only  a  special  exemplification  ?  Psychology 
only  can  answer,  as,  by  her  analysis,  she  shows  that  in  all  the 
processes  which  man  performs,  he  necessarily  originates  and  ap- 
plies these  conceptions  and  relations.  By  studying  the  mind,  \Ve 
discover  the  laws  by  which  both  mind  and  matter  can  be  studied 
aright.  By  studying  the  miud,  we  unveil  and  evolve  the  neces- 
sary conceptions  and  primary  beliefs,  by  which  the  mind  itself 
interprets,  or  under  which  it  views  the  universe  of  matter  and 
spirit.  It  is,  then,  through  psychology  that  we  reach  the  very 
sciences  to  which  psychology  itself  is  subject  and  amenable. 
Psychology  is  the  starting-point  from  which  we  proceed.  Psy- 
chology is  also  the  goal  to  which  we  must  return,  if  we  retrace 
the  path  along  which  science  has  led  us.  In  synthesis  we  begin, 
in  analysis  we  end,  with  this  mother  of  all  the  sciences. 

This  special  relation  of  psychology  to  these  fundamental  sciences  explains 
why  psychology  is  itself  so  often  called  philosophy  and  metaphysics,  while  it  is 
neitLer,  but  simply  a  science  of  observation  and  of  fact.  It  does,  however,  lead 
to  philosophy  and  to  metaphysics,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the  discoveries  which  it 
evolves  and  the  habits  to  which  it  trains.  It  is  the  natural  introduction  to  meta- 
physical or  philosophical  studies,  for  its  own  investigations  will  conduct  the 
mind  step  by  step  to  those  inquiries  which  will  bring  into  view  all  the  conceptions 
and  relations,  concerning  the  authority  of  which  speculative  intellects  have  dis- 
puted in  all  the  schools.  These  conceptions  and  relations  are  employed  in  all  the 
special  sciences  of  nature,  or,  in  the  language  of  the  ancients,  in  all  physics,  whe- 
ther the  rn  QvffiKci  are  material  or  spiritual.  Hence  it  may  be  that  all  inquiries 
concerning  them  were  called  metaphysical,  as  beyond,  or  preliminary  to,  the 
physical,  and  the  science  was  called  metaphysics.  Hence  psychology  itself  was 
called  philosophy,  as  it  conducted  to  philosophy  par  Eminence,  the  prima  philoso- 
phia,  which  is  fundamental  to  all  the  special  and  applied  sciences. 

§  12.  It  is  obvious  that,  if  psychology  holds  these 
s  Js^JhSC,jpline    relations  to  so  many  special  sciences,  the  study  of  it 
must  of  itself  be   a  most   efficient    discipline    to 
method  and  logical  power. 

"  What  is  that,"  says  Coleridge,  (The Friend,  Sec.  II.,  Ess.  4,) 
"  which  first  strikes  us,  and  strikes  us  at  once  in  a  man  of  educa- 
tion? And  which,  among  educated  men,  so  instantly  distin- 
guishes the  man  of  superior  mind,  that  (as  was  observed,  with 
eminent  propriety,  of  the  late  Edmund  Burke)  we  cannot  stand 
under  the  same  arch-way  during  a  shower  of  rain,  without  finding 
him  out  ?  Not  the  weight  or  novelty  of  his  remarks ;  not  any 


§  14.  THE   RELATIONS   OF   THE   SOUL   TO   MATTER.  11 

unusual  interest  of  facts  communicated  by  him,  *  *  *  * 
*  It  is  the  unpremeditated  and  evidently  habitual  arrange- 
ment of  his  words,  grounded  on  the  habit  of  foreseeing,  in  each 
integral  part,  or  (more  plainly)  in  every  sentence,  the  whole  that 
he  intends  to  communicate.  However  irregular  and  desultory 
his  talk,  there  is  method  in  the  fragments." 

It  is  impossible  for  a  person  to  be  accustomed  to  reflect  upon 
his  own  psychical  states,  to  analyze  them  into  their  elements,  to 
trace  his  practical  maxims  and  his  scientific  axioms  to  their 
fundamental  principles,  or  to  evolve  them  from  their  psychologi- 
cal beginnings ;  it  is  impossible  that  a  man  should  be  thus  dis- 
ciplined without  acquiring  the  power  of  thinking  clearly,  ra- 
tionally, and  by  orderly  processes,  and  without  also  gaining  the 
power  to  express  his  thoughts  in  a  lucid  and  convincing  manner. 
To  whatever  subject  of  investigation  or  business  in  life  such  a 
student  may  apply  the  discipline  thus  acquired,  he  will  bring  to 
it  a  mind  capable  of  mastering  the  subject  with  satisfaction  to 
himself  and  to  others,  and  of  gaining  that  supremacy  which  the 
man  who  thinks  with  order  will  always  secure  over  those  who 
think  superficially,  or  who  think  with  lack  of  method. 


IT. 

THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  SOUL  TO  MATTER. 

§  13.  Psychology  is  properly  a  branch  of  physics, 

.     *  i  j      •       -A      A-  jf  ^  •  .1  Psychology  is 

in  the  enlarged  signification  of  the  term  ;  i.  e.,  the  a  branch  of 
science  of  the  soul  is  one  of  the  many  sciences  of  pl38" 
nature.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  substance  of  the 
soul,  its  phenomena  are  unquestioned  facts.  They  are  facts 
which  are  as  real  and  as  potent  as  the  phenomena  of  gravitation 
or  electricity.  As  such,  they  assert  their  pUce  in  that  vast 
system  of  beings  which  we  call  Nature,  or  the  Universe,  and 
they  claim  to  be  considered  by  the  methods  of  inquiry  which  are 
appropriate  to  scientific  investigation. 

§  14.  The  true  philosopher  will  admit  the  justice 
of  this  claim,  and  will  proceed  to  consider  these  phe-  its  facts  are  at 

.,,.,          r*       •         •  r>  11  T-»  first  distrusted 

nomena  in  the  light  01  scientific  methods.     .But  when  by  the  stu- 

he  begins  seriously  to  study  them,  he  finds,  perhaps 

to  his  surprise,  that  they  are  very  unlike  the  phenomena  ta 


12  INTRODUCTION.  §  15. 

which  he  has  been  accustomed.  He  discovers  that  the  subject- 
matter  of  investigation,  in  its  manifestations,  forces  and  laws,  is 
strikingly  and  strangely  peculiar.  The  inquirer  is  surprised, 
disturbed,  and  perhaps  offended.  His  first  impulse  is,  to 
question  the  reality  and  trustworthiness  of  the  facts  themselves  ; 
#ie  next,  to  doubt  whether  they  can  be  successfully  analyzed  and 
accurately  defined.  If  it  be  conceded  that  they  are  actual,  and 
worthy  to  be  investigated,  it  is  at  once  presumed  that  they  may 
be  attributed  to  some  material  substance  or  agent,  or  explained 
by  material  laws,  or  at  leap  .1  be  illustrated  by  material  analo- 
gies. This  tendency  to  resolve  the  soul  into  matter,  or  to  judge 
the  soul  by  matter,  is  very  strong ;  at  times  it  is  almost  irresis- 
tible, and  has  in  all  ages  exerted  over  the  most  candid  and 
truth-loving  minds  a  powerful  and  unconscious  influence.  It  has 
become,  therefore,  almost  a  necessity,  in  an  Introduction  to  the 
study  of  this  science,  to  consider  this  influence  distinctly,  so  as  to 
account  for  its  existence  and  to  guard  against  its  effects.  For 
the  same  reason  also  it  is  desirable,  by  a  preliminary  discussion, 
to  determine  what  are  the  relations  of  the  soul  and  its  phe- 
nomena to  the  essence,  powers,  and  laws  of  matter. 

§  15.  We  would  first  account  for  the  existence  of 
Material  phe-   this  tendency.     By  the  natural   course  of  develop- 

nomena  are  the  ,  .    . 

earliest  known,  ment  and  training,  we  are  for  a  long  period  exclu- 
sively occupied  with  material  phenomena  and  mate- 
rial laws.  What  the  man  sees  and  hears  and  smells  and  tastes, 
first  attracts  and  absorbs  the  attention.  When  he  begins  to  re- 
flect, the  objects  which  he  compares  and  distinguishes,  which  he 
classifies  and  arranges,  are  almost  exclusively  sensible  objects. 
When  he  rises  to  scientific  knowledge,  it  is  to  the  science  of  mate- 
rial things.  The  laws  of  mechanics,  of  fluids,  of  light,  of  chemi- 
cal union,  of  vegetable  and  animal  life,  are  the  laws  which  he 
first  studies,  masters,  and  learns  to  apply  and  to  trust.  It  is  in 
the  order  of  nature,  therefore,  that  the  sciences  of  matter  should 
be  studied  before  the  sciences  of  the  soul.  It  follows,  by  a  natu- 
ral and  almost  necessary  consequence,  that  the  conceptions  and 
methods  of  investigation  which  are  appropriate  to  material  ob- 
jects, should  so  control  the  mind's  habits  and  associations,  as  to 
take  almost  exclusive  possession  of  them. 


S   17r  THE  RELATIONS  OP  THE  SOUL  TO  MATTER.  13 

§  16.  When  we  pass  over  from  the  study  of  mat- 
ter to  the  study  of  spirit,  the  prepossessions  which  we  ^gSSS  «8 
have  thus  derived  remain  with  us.  We  ask,  Are  the  impressions, 
phenomena  real  ?  Can  they  be  actual  and  substan- 
tial when  so  unlike  those  phenomena  which  we  see  and  hear,  which 
we  handle  and  taste  ?  But  allowing  that  they  are  actual,  can 
they  be  definitely  known  ?  Can  we  compare  and  class  them  ? 
When  we  ask,  To  what  substance  do  they  pertain  ?  the  readiest  an- 
swer is,  To  some  material  substance;  and  the  soul  is  readily  re- 
solved into  some  form  of  attenuated  matter.  Its  functions,  also, 
are  explained  by  the  action  of  the  animal  spirits,  or  by  chemical 
or  electrical  changes  in  the  nervous  substance.  Perception  is  re- 
solved into  impressions  on  the  eye  and  the  ear,  which  impressions 
are  referred  to  motions  in  a  vibrating  fluid  without,  which  in 
turn  are  responded  to  by  motions  aroused  in  a  vibrating  agent 
within.  Memory  and  association  are  explained  by  the  mutual 
attractions  or  repulsions  of  ideas  similar  to  those  to  which  the 
particles  of  matter  are  subjected  by  cohesion  or  electricity. 
Generalization  and  judgment,  induction  and  reasoning,  are  re- 
solved into  the  frequent  and  often-repeated  deposits  of  impressions 
that  have  some  mechanical  affinity  for  one  another. 

The  mind  that  is  trained  by  the  most  liberal  culture,  or  that  is 
schooled  to  the  most  complete  self-control,  cannot  easily  divest 
itself  of  the  prejudices  and  prepossessions  which  have  been  con- 
tracted by  previous  studies.  Indeed,  the  man  devoted  to  a  single 
class  of  studies  or  department  of  science  is  liable  to  stronger  and 
more  inveterate  prejudices  than  he  whose  views  have  not  been 
strengthened  by  reflection,  tested  by  experiment,  and  enforced  by 
authority.  The  man  confirmed  in  his  associations  by  means  of  a 
familiar  mastery  over  some  physical  science,  is  the  man  of  all 
others  to  whom  the  phenomena  of  the  soul  seem  most  novel  and 
the  conceptions  most  unfamiliar. 

§  17.  But  it  is  not  enough  to  be  forewarned  of  These  8hould 
these  influences,  we  need  also  to  be  forearmed  against  beset  aside,  in 

'  ....  what  way. 

them.     In  order  to  this,  it  is  wise  to  take  a  general 
and  preliminary  view  of  the  relations  of  the  soul  to  matter.     We 
propose  to  present — first,  those  considerations  which  may  fairly 
be  urged  by  and  conceded  to  the  materialist,  or  the  materialistic 
psychologist ;  and  second,  those  which  indicate  and  prove  that  the 


14  INTRODUCTION.  §  18. 

soul  has  an  activity  that  is  independent  of  material  agents,  and 
follows  laws  that  are  peculiar  to  itself. 

§  18.  The  materialist  urges,  1.  That  we  know  the 
The  arguments    soul  only  as  connected  with  a  material  organization  ; 

of  the  material-  J 

ist.  (i).The  soul  that  the  agent  called  the  soul  exerts  all  its  activities 
with  a  body.  and  manifests  all  its  phenomena  by  means  of  the 
human  body.  Of  a  soul  which  acts  or  manifests  its 
acts  apart  from  the  body,  we  have  no  experience,  either  by  per- 
sonal observation  or  through  credible  testimony. 

2.  The  powers  of  the  soul   are  developed  along 

2.  The  soul  is    with  the  powers  and  capacities  of  this    organized 

developed  with  .   . 

the  body.  structure.     As  these  powers  and  capacities  are  seve- 

rally called  into  action  and  reach  their  full  perfec- 
tion, the  powers  of  the  soul  appear,  one  after  another,  and  attain 
the  full  measure  of  the  energy  which  nature  has  assigned  them. 
The  lower  organs  of  the  body  act  first  in  order,  and  these  are  de- 
veloped and  matured  at  the  earliest  period.  Afterwards  the 
higher  organs  are  gradually  matured  and  brought  into  action. 
After  the  body  is  completely  developed  for  all  its  functions,  it 
passes  through  certain  stages  of  growth,  increasing  in  size  and 
strength.  During  these  periods  of  development  and  growth  the 
soul  is  also  unfolded  and  matured.  One  power  after  another  is 
made  ready  to  act,  and  the  capacity  for  the  action  of  each  is  en- 
larged and  strengthened.  Because  the  soul  is  unfolded  as  the  body 
is  developed,  and  the  soul  grows  with  the  growth  of  the  body, 
it  is  urged  that  what  we  call  the  soul  is  but  a  name  for  the  capa- 
cities to  perform  certain  higher  functions  which  belong  to  a  finely 
organized  and  fully  developed  material  organism. 

3.  The  soul  is  dependent  on  the  body  for  much  of 

3.  is  dependent   its  knowledge  and  for  many  of  its  en] oyments.    It  is 

on  the  body  for       .  .         .  .  .  , 

its   knowledge    through  the  eye  only  that  it  perceives  and  enjoys 
color,  and  through  the  ear  only  that  it  apprehends 
and  is  delighted  with  sound.     It  is  only  as  a  mate- 
rial organ  is  affected  by  a  material  object,  that  the  mind  makes 
a  single  new  acquisition  concerning  matter.     Should  these  organs 
N       cease  to  exist,  or  cease  to  be  acted  on,  all  new  acquisitions  and 
new  enjoyments  would  cease  to  be  possible.     Even  the  so-called 
higher  kinds  of  knowledge  and  feeling  have  a  nearer  or  remoter 
reference  to  the  objects  of  sense  with  which  we  are  brought  in 
contact  through  the  bodily  organs. 


§  18.  THE   RELATIONS   OF  THE  SOUL  TO   MATTER.  15 

Moreover,  so  far  as  we  know,  the  soul  begins  to  act  and  to 
enjoy,  only  when  these  organs  are  aroused  by  their  appropriate 
material  excitants  or  stimuli;  and  it  would  never  act  or.  enjoy  at 
all,  either  in  higher  or  lower  forms,  if  these  organs  were  not 
first  called  into  action. 

4.  The  soul  is  dependent  on  the  body,  and  on 

_  .  4.  Also  for  its 

matter,  for  its  energy  and  activity,  it  sympathizes  energy  and  ao 
most  intimately  with  every  change  in  the  body.  The 
capacity  to  fix  the  attention  so  as  to  perceive  clearly,  to  remem- 
ber accurately,  and  to  comprehend  fully,  varies  with  the  condi- 
tion of  the  stomach  and  the  action  of  the  heart.  A  slight  indis- 
position is  incompatible  with  the  performance  of  the  simplest 
functions  of  the  intellect,  and  with  the  exercise  of  those  emotions 
to  which  the  soul  is  most  wonted.  An  active  disease  disorders 
the  imagination,  filling  it  with  offensive  and  incongruous  phanta- 
sies, which  the  will  can  neither  exclude  nor  regulate.  The  suffu- 
sion of  the  brain  with  blood  or  water,  disqualifies  the  soul  for  ac- 
tion of  any  kind,  or  stupefies  it  into  entire  unconsciousness.  A 
change  in  the  structure  or  in  the  functions  of  the  brain,  or  some 
lesion  of  the  nervous  system,  induces  that  suspension  of  the  higher 
and  regulating  functions  which  we  call  insanity.  This  state  is 
permanent  when  its  cause  is  permanent;  and  the  soul  may  even 
relapse  from  this  into  the  condition  of  idiocy,  from  which  it  is 
never  known  to  emerge.  That  state  of  the  body  which  we  call 
fainting  takes  away  all  conscious  perception  and  enjoyment,  and 
causes  the  soul  to  sink  into  blank  inaction.  Another  state  of  the 
body  in  sleep  induces  another  kind  of  activity,  in  which  the  usual 
laws  of  perception,  judgment,  and  memory,  as  well  as  the  usual 
conditions  of  hope  and  fear,  seem  to  be  deranged  or  reversed. 
When  the  organization  of  the  body  is  destroyed,  the  soul  ceases 
to  act,  and,  for  aught  we  can  observe,  it  ceases  to  exist. 

5.  The  soul  is  the  termination   of  a    series    of 

.    ,  i  •   i       •          i  i          i  .         6.  It  terminates 

material  existences,  which  rise  above  each  other  m    a  scries  of  ma- 
orderly  gradation,  each  preparing  the  way  for  the 


other  ;  and  all  are  represented  in  that  form  of  or- 
ganized matter  which  manifests  and  sustains  the  highest  of  all, 
i.  e.,  the  so-called  phenomena  of  the  soul.     The  lowest  form   of 
matter  obeys  mechanical  laws.     The  form  next  higher  is  seen   in 
bodies  endowed  with  chemical  properties  and  capable  of  chemi- 


16  INTRODUCTION.  §  18. 

cal  combinations.     Here  masses  and  molecules  unlike  each  othof 
unite  in  such  a  way  as  to  form  a  third  unlike  either.     In  the 
form  next  higher,  matter  disposes  its  particles  in  crystalline  ar^ 
rangement,  according  to  the  law  of  which  the  elements  arrange 
themselves  in  forms  more  or  less  symmetrical,  after  the  rules  of 
a  natural  geometry.     Next  we  find  the  lowest  types  of  organized 
existence,  of  which  the  crystal  is  the  mute  prophecy.     In  these, 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  there  are  separate  organs,  each  of 
which  performs  a  special  function,  necessary  to  the  existence  and 
functional  activity  of  every  other  organ  and  to  the  whole  structure, 
which  is  made  up  of  all  the  organs  together.     The  plant,  when 
the  requisite  conditions  are  present  of  nourishment,  moisture,  and 
light,  expands  into  a  developed  organism,  thrusts  out  the  bud 
and  leaf,  opens  the  flower  by  which  its  beauty  is  perfected,  and 
its  seed  and  fruit  are  formed  and  matured.     The  animal  requires 
material  conditions  of  food  and  air  and  light.     It  comes  into 
being  by  peculiar  processes,  it  grows  into  a  complicated  structure 
of  bone,  muscle,  viscera,  nerves,  and  brain,  each  separate  organ 
fulfilling  its  special  duty,  and  all  acting  together  so  as  to  form  a 
completed  whole.     As  the  animal  structure  becomes  more  per- 
fectly and   delicately  organized,  the    phenomena  of  the   soul 
begin   to   appear,   requiring   as   their   condition    all    the   lower 
forms  of  nature,  with  the  presence  and  action  of  mechanical, 
chemical,  and  organic  powers  and  laws.     So  far  also  as  we  ob- 
serve the  various  grades  of  animal  life,  as  is  the  perfection  of  the 
material  structure  so  is  the  perfection  of  the  soul.     The  more 
simple  the  organization,  the  fewer  are  the  instincts  and  the  more 
limited  is  the  intelligence.     The  more  complex  and  delicate  the 
structure,  the  wider  is  the  range  and  the  richer  the  capacities  for 
knowledge,  enjoyment,  and  skill.     The  human  being  also  so  far 
as  its  development  can  be  traced,  seems  to  pass  in    succession 
through  the  lower  up  to  the  higher  grades  of  organic  life.     It  is 
first,  as  it  were,  a  plant,  having  only  vegetative  existence,  in  the 
capacity  for   nourishment   and   growth;    then   it    becomes    an 
animal,  passing  through  the  lowest  to  the    highest    forms    of 
animal  existence ;  last  of  all,  it  emerges  into  that  which  is  still 
higher,  viz.,  the  special  forms  of  activity,  which  are  intelligent,  sensi- 
tive, self-conscious,  and  rational.     It  would  seem,  it  is  argued, 
that  the  soul  and  the  body  are  one  organic  growth.     The  one  ia 


§19.  THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  SOUL  TO  MATTER.  17 

perfected  with  the  other,  the  one  depends  on  the  other,  the  one 
results  from  the  other.  To  this  is  added  the  consideration 
already  noticed,  that  organic  or  nervous  force,  and  psychical  or 
mental  force,  go  hand  in  hand  in  energy. 

From  these  analogies  it  is  concluded  that  the  soul 

The  conclusion 

is  only  a  convenient  term  for  the  higher  forms  of  of  the  material' 
activity  which  matter  exerts  in  its  more  highly  or- 
ganized forms  of  existence.  Or,  Lin  other  words,  the  soul,  in 
its  essence  and  its  acts,  is  dependent  on  organization ;  and 
when  the  organism  is  disintegrated,  the  activity  of  the  soul  must 
terminate.  Its  existence  separately  from  organized  matter,  or  as 
transferred  to  another  and  a  new  organism,  involves  an  absurd 
and  impossible  conception. 

§  19.  The  considerations  which  may  be  urged  in 
proof  that  the  substance  of  the  soul  is  not  material,     Counter  argu- 

>    ments  (1).    Its 

are  the  following :  1.  The  phenomena  of  the  soul  phenomena  are 

0  ,  unlike  material 

are  in  kind  unlike  the  phenomena  which  pertain  to  phenomena, 
matter.  All  material  phenomena  have  one  common 
characteristic — that  they  are  discerned  by  the  senses.  They  can 
be  seen,  felt,  touched,  tasted,  and  can  also  be  weighed  and  mea- 
sured. But  the  phenomena  of  the  soul,  at  least,  are  known  by- 
consciousness,  and,  as  thus  known,  are  directly  discerned  to  be 
totally  unlike  all  those  events  and  occurrences  which  the  senses 
apprehend.  The  phenomena  discerned  by  the  senses  are  also 
known  to  have  some  relation  to  space.  Motion,  color,  taste, 
sound,  combustion,  breathing,  circulation,  secretion,  galvanic 
agency,  chemical  combination,  growth,  decomposition — every 
kind  and  form  of  material  activity — require  extension  in  the  sub- 
stance on  which  they  operate,  or  in  the  effect  or  activity  itself. 
But  feeling,  will,  thought,  memory,  joy,  sorrow,  purpose,  resolve, 
admit  of  no  such  relation  to  space.  Even  those  agents  in  nature 
which  are  most  imponderable  and  impalpable,  as  the  electric 
force  or  fluid  and  the  vital  or  organic  force  in  the  animal  or 
plant,  both  require  a  certain  portion  of  matter  as  the  active  oi 
potent  substance  which  exhibits  electrical  or  vital  activity.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  phenomena  of  the  soul  are  by  consciousness 
not  only  not  necessarily  referred  to  any  such  portion  of  matter, 
but  they  are  referred  to  another  agent,  the  acting  or  suffering 
ego,  which  is  not  known  by  consciousness  to  have  any  sensible  or 


18  INTRODUCTION.  §  19. 

material  attributes.     These  peculiarities  clearly  and  sharply  dis- 
tinguish the  two  classes  or  species  of  phenomena. 

2.  The  soul       2.  The  acting  ego  is  not  only  not  known  to  be  in 
ftST^om68   an7  Wa7  material,  but  it  distinguishes  its  own  actings, 

states  and  products,  and  even  itself,  from  the  material 
substance  with  which  it  is  most  intimately  connected,  from  the 
very  organized  body  on  whose  organization  all  its  functions,  and 
the  very  function  of  knowing  or  distinguishing,  are  said  to  de- 
pend. First,  it  distinguishes  from  this  body  every  other  material 
thing  and  object,  asserting  that  the  one  is  not  the  other. 
Second,  it  just  as  clearly,  though  not  in  the  same  way  or  on  the 
same  grounds,  distinguishes  itself  and  its  states  from  the  material 
objects  which  it  discerns.  It  knows  that  the  agent  which  sees 
and  hears  is  not  the  matter  which  is  seen  and  heard.  Third,  the 
soul  also  distinguishes  itself  and  its  inner  states  from  the  organ- 
ized matter — i.  e.,  its  own  bodily  organs — by  means  of  which  it 
perceives  and  is  affected  by  other  matter.  Fourth,  it  resists  the 
force  and  actings  of  its  own  body,  and,  in  so  doing,  most  emphati- 
cally distinguishes  itself  as  an  agent  from  that  which  it  resists. 
By  its  own  activity  it  struggles  against  and  opposes  the  coming 
on  of  sleep,  of  faintness,  and  of  death.  Even  in  those  conscious 
acts  in  which  it  feels  itself  most  at  the  disposal  and  control  of 
the  body,  it  recognizes  its  separate  existence  and  independent 
energy. 

3.  The  soul       3.  The  soul  is  self-active.     Matter  of  itself  is  inert. 
is  aeif-activo.   rpj^  gouj  jg  impelled  to  action  from  within  by  its  own 
energy.     Matter  only  takes  a  new  position,  or  passes  into  a  new 
state,  as  it  is  acted  upon  by  a  force  from  without.    True,  the  soul 
must  begin  its    activities  with    the   awakening  of   the    senses; 
but  when  it  is  once  awakened,  it  never  sleeps,  so  far  as  we  can 
observe  or  infer.     If  the  senses  should  furnish  it  no  new  objects, 
it  might  go  on  without  intermitting  its  action,  busying  itself  with 
the   materials   already  furnished   under  laws  of  its  own.     We 
grant  also  that  what  it  perceives  and  desires  and  does,  is  deter- 
mined, to  a  very  great  extent,  by  the  objects  which  present  them- 
selves from  without ;  but  these  direct  the  course  of  its  action  by 
furnishing  it  objects;  they  do  not  cause  it  to  act.     We  concede 
even  that  its  energy  in  action  is  dependent  on  material  condi- 
tions, as  the  tension  and  healthful  harmony  of  the  nervous  sys* 


§  19.  THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  SOUL  TO  MATTER.  19 

tern.  When  the  nerves  are  relaxed  or  disturbed,  as  in  fainting 
or  disease,  the  force  of  the  soul  is  greatly  weakened  or  frightfully 
disordered ;  but  there  is  no  proof  that  any  bodily  conditions  can 
arrest  psychical  activity  after  it  has  once  been  aroused.  In  this 
respect  the  contrast  is  striking  between  matter  and  spirit. 

4.  To  very  many  of  the  states  of  the  soul  no  changes    ^  Ig  ^  ^ 
or  affections  of  the  organism  can  be  observed  or  traced,  pendent    on 

matter  m  its 

as  their  conditions  or  prerequisites.     It  is  argued  that  highest  ac- 

.      °  tivities. 

the  soul  and  body  are  one  material  organism,  because 
we  know  that  in  many  instances  some  affection  of  the  one  is  ne- 
cassary  as  the  condition  of  a  correspondent  affection  of  the  other ; 
e.  g.,  the  soul  cannot  see  unless  the  retina  is  painted  by  the  light, 
nor  can  it  hear  unless  the  ear  vibrates  through  sound.  It  ought 
greatly  to  weaken  the  force  of  this  argument,  to  observe  that  the 
change  in  the  soul  is  in  its  nature  wholly  unlike  the  conditions 
which  go  before  it.  The  impression  on  the  eye  or  the  ear  has  no 
affinity  with  or  likeness  to  the  perception  which  follows.  More- 
over, the  condition  in  the  organism  is  often  a  condition  only  so 
far  as  to  furnish  an  object  which  the  soul  apprehends,  i.  e.,  the 
eye  sees  rather  than  hears,  and  sees  this  object  rather  than 
another,  because  the  excited  organism  furnishes  the  object  matter 
or  occasion.  The  conclusiveness  of  the  argument  is  entirely  broken, 
when  we  reflect  that  no  changes  whatever  in  the  organism  are 
known  to  precede  or  to  condition  the  most  numerous  and  the 
most  important  psychical  states  and  affections.  We  grant  that 
the  landscape  which  we  see  must  first  be  pictured  on  the  retina. 
But  what  change  or  affection  of  the  material  organism  occurs, 
when  the  soul,  at  the  sight  of  this  landscape,  images  another  like 
it,  calls  up  by  memory  a  similar  scene,  which  had  been  seen  years 
before  a  thousand  miles  distant,  or,  by  creative  acts  of  its  own, 
constructs  picture  after  picture  that  are  more  beautiful  and 
varied  than  the  one  it  is  beholding?  Or  what  bodily  changes 
precede  desire  and  disgust,  hope  and  fear,  at  these  memories  and 
creations?  No  such  changes  have  ever  been  discerned.  No 
ground  is  furnished  for  surmising  that  they  ever  occur.  They 
must  occur  in  every  instance,  to  justify  the  theory  of  the  material- 
ist. That  they  do  occur  is  simply  assumed.  They  have  neve* 
been  observed. 


20  INTRODUCTION.  §  19. 

5.  The  regular  gradation  in  the  arrangement  of  the 

6.  Gradation 

of  existence  several  kinds  of  material  existences,  and  the  progres- 

does not  prove  11-1^  p 

the  soui  to  be  sive  development  from  the  lower  to  the  higher  forms  of 
organized  matter,  do  not  of  themselves  prove  that  the 
soul  is  matter  in  a  more  highly  organized  form.  Nor  does  the 
fact  that  the  transition  from  the  highest  forms  of  organized  mat- 
ter to  the  lowest  types  of  psychical  activity  cannot  be  readily  dis- 
criminated ;  nor  that  the  body,  which  is  organized  for  the  uses  of 
the  soul,  seems  in  its  development  to  assume  in  successive  order 
all  the  lower  types  of  organization,  force  us  to  believe  that  a 
common  substance,  obeying  material  laws,  is  capable  of  rising  into 
that  refinement  of  organization  which  can  perform  the  functions 
of  knowledge  and  affection. 

These  facts  can  only  be  regarded  as  proof  by  the  man  who 
assumes  that  the  existence  of  immaterial  or  spiritual  being  is  im- 
possible, and  the  belief  of  it  is  unphilosophical.  This  assumption 
involves  the  inference  that  there  is  no  spiritual  Creator.  If 
there  be  a  creating  Spirit,  who  originated  and  controls  matter, 
then  it  is  not  unphilosophical  to  believe  that  there  may  be  a 
created  spirit,  which  is  intimately  connected  with  and  affected 
by  a  material  organism,  or  which,  perhaps,  is  itself  the  organizing 
agent. 

To  those  who  assume  that  there  can  be  no  creating  Spirit,  it  is 
useless  to  attempt  to  prove  that  there  may  be  spirit  that  is  cre- 
ated. To  those  who  admit  that  there  is  or  may  be  a  creating 
Spirit,  or  even  to  those  who  believe  that  design  has  a  place  in  the 
universe,  the  regularity  of  development  and  progressive  transition 
from  one  being  to  another  simply  indicate  a  unity  of  plan  in  the 
creation  more  clearly  and  more  satisfactorily  rather  than  prove  a 
unity  of  substance  in  the  agent.  It  may  be  impossible  for  us  to 
draw  the  line  where  material  organization  ends  and  spiritual 
agency  begins,  where  unconscious  reaction  ceases  and  conscious 
activity  emerges.  But  we  know  enough  to  affirm  that  if  spiritual 
existence  is  possible,  and  if  it  be  necessary  from  its  constitution 
or  important  to  its  destiny  that  it  be  developed  with  or  organize 
matter,  then  all  those  phenomena  by  which  it  seems  to  rise  by  a 
natural  evolution  from  the  higher  forms  of  matter,  and  to  crown 
the  series  which  it  terminates  as  "the  bright  consummate 
flower,"  are  fully  explained  by  the  unity,  the  beauty,  and  the 


§  21.  THE   RELATIONS   OF   THE  SOUL   TO   MATTER.  21 

harmony  of  the  Creator's  plan,  and  do  not  require  a  unity  of  sub- 
stance. 

This  is  all  that  needs  to  be  determined  at  the  present  stage  of  our 
inquiries.  What  the  substance  of  the  soul  is,  and  what  its  des- 
tiny, can  be  fully  defined  and  vindicated  by  the  philosophy 
and  theology  to  which  psychology  is  the  appropriate  intro- 
duction. 

§  20.  It  is  important  to  remember,  however,  that 

The  phenome- 

whatever  views  we  accept  01  the  nature  01  the  soul,   «a  of  the  soul 

real. 

its  phenomena  are  as  real  as  any  other,  and  their 
peculiarities  are  entitled  to  a  distinct  recognition  by  the  true 
philosopher.  Whatever  psychical  properties  or  laws  can  be 
established  on  appropriate  evidence,  they  all  deserve  to  be  ac- 
cepted as  among  the  real  agencies  and  laws  of  the  actual  uni- 
verse. Perception,  memory,  and  reasoning  are  processes  which 
are  as  real  as  gravitation  and  electrical  action.  In  one  as- 
pect their  reality  is  more  worthy  of  confidence  and  respect,  as 
it  is  by  means  of  perception  and  reasoning  that  we  know  gravita- 
tion and  electricity. 

§  21.  The  analogy  of  the  physical  sciences  estab-  Phenomena  of 
lishes  the  principle,  that  facts  of  one  sort  are  not  to  one  sort  cannot 

A  A  be   judged   by 

be  distrusted  because  they  differ  in  kind  or  quality  JJose  of  an- 
from  those  of  another  class.  Phenomena  of  one 
description  are  not  to  be  resolved  by  laws  that  hold  good  of  those 
of  another.  Chemical  facts  and  laws  are  not  disputed  because 
they  cannot  be  explained  by  mechanical  properties  and  powers. 
The  functions  by  which  the  plant  is  nourished  and  grows  are  not 
to  be  doubted  because  they  cannot  be  explained  by  the  laws 
which  regulate  the  rise  of  water  in  a  pump,  or  those  which  unite 
an  acid  or  an  oil  with  an  alkali  into  a  salt  or  a  soap.  The  cir- 
culation of  the  blood,  and  the  digestion  of  the  food,  are  not  to  be 
questioned,  or  violently  explained  by  laws  which  do  not  solve 
them,  because  they  exhibit  special  and  novel  activities,  and  must 
be  interpreted  by  peculiar  methods.  We  are  indeed  prompted 
to  reduce  all  our  knowledge  to  unity,  and  we  therefore  seek  to 
explain  two  events  and  two  classes  of  phenomena,  if  it  is  possible, 
by  a  single  agency  and  after  a  single  law.  We  must  prefer  the 
well-known  and  the  familiar  to  the  unknown  and  the  untried ; 
but  if  we  do  not  succeed,  we  may  not  for  this  reason  doubt  the 


22  INTRODUCTION.  §  22. 

facts  or  misconstrue  their  laws.  If  any  of  the  phenomena  con- 
cerning man  which  are  discerned  by  consciousness  alone 
happen  to  be  newly  observed, — if  their  truth  is  established 
through  consciousness — then  they  are  to  be  received  as  real, 
whether  they  are  or  are  not  like  the  phenomena  of  matter,  or 
whether  they  can  or  cannot  be  explained  by  the  laws  or  analogies 
which  material  phenomena  illustrate  and  exemplify.  To  deny 
them,  is  uuphilosophical.  To  attempt  to  explain  them  by  any 
resort  to  physical  analogies  which  fail  to  solve  them,  or  which 
destroy  their  integrity  or  essentially  alter  their  character,  is  to  be 
more  un philosophical  still.  If  either  class  of  phenomena  should 
take  precedence  of  and  give  law  to  the  other,  the  spiritual 
should  stand  before  the  material,  for  the  reasons  which  have  been 
already  given. 

§  22.     We  ought  also  to  distinguish  between  the 

The    phenom-  &  V 

ena,  and  lan-  powers  and  laws  which  consciousness  discovers,  and 

guage  in  which    *  1-1,1  -,. 

they  are  de-  •  the  medium  by  which  these  discoveries  are  recorded 
and  made  known.  This  medium  is  language,  in  the 
large  acceptation  of  the  term — the  language  of  signs,  of  looks, 
and  of  words.  The  most  superficial  inspection  of  the  words 
which  describe  the  thoughts  and  feelings,  reveals  the  fact  conclu- 
sively that  they  were  all  originally  appropriated  to  material  ob- 
jects aad  to  physical  phenomena,  The  words  perceive,  under- 
stand, imagine,  disgust,  disturb,  adhere,  and  a  multitude  besides, 
were  all  originally  applied  to  some  material  act  or  event.  It  is 
only  by  a  secondary  or  transferred  signification  that  they  stand 
for  the  states  or  acts  of  the  soul. 

Locke  well  observes  on  this  point,  (Essay,  B.  iii.,  c.  1,  §5): — • 
"  It  may  lead  us  a  little  toward  the  original  of  all  our  notions 
and  knowledge,  if  we  remark  how  great  a  dependence  our  words 
have  on  common,  sensible  ideas ;  and  how  those  which  are  made 
use  of  to  stand  for  actions  and  notions  quite  removed  from  sense, 
have  their  rise  from  thence,  and  from  obvious  sensible  ideas  are 
transferred  to  more  abstruse  significations,  and  made  to  stand  for 
ideas  that  come  not  under  the  cognizance  of  our  senses ;  e-  g  ,  to 
imagine,  apprehend,  comprehend,  adhere,  conceive,  instil,  disgust, 
disturbance,  tranquillity,  etc.,  are  all  words  taken  from  the  opera- 
tions of  sensible  things,  and  applied  to  certain  modes  of  think- 
ing. Spirit,  in  its  primary  signification,  is  breath  ;  angel,  a  mes- 


§  23.  THE   RELATIONS   OP  THE  SOUL   TO   MATTER.  23 

senger ;  and  I  doubt  not  but  if  we  could  trace  them  to  their 
sources,  we  should  find  in  all  languages  the  names  which  stand 
for  things  that  fall  not  under  our  senses  to  have  had  their  first 
rise  from  sensible  ideas." 

§  23.  The  physical  analogon  which  led  to  the 
selection  of  the  word  often  lurks  behind  its  psychical  fluenco  ot  iau- 
import,  and  is  ready  suddenly  to  spring  out  before  8 
the  eyes,  and  not  unfrequently  to  suggest  erroneous  and  mis- 
chievous conclusions.  Let  the  word  impression  be  used,  as  it 
frequently  is,  for  some  affection  of  the  intellect  or  the  emotions, 
and  it  is  conceived  and  reasoned  of  as  involving  some  pressure  or 
impulse.  A  mental  image  is  taken  to  be  a  literal  drawing  ot 
picture  that  is  painted  on  the  '  presence-chamber '  of  the  soul,  or 
can  be  restored  or  re-illuminated  by  the  memory.  The  objects 
of  the  external  world  are  said  to  be  out  of  the  mind,  while  the 
image  or  remembrance  is  said  to  be  in  it ;  as  though  the  soul 
filled  a  portion  of  space,  and  disposed  its  thoughts  within  its 
walls  or  limits.  The  memory  is  conceived  as  a  storehouse  of 
facts,  dates,  or  principles,  all  ready  to  be  taken  down  or  drawn 
out  when  required.  Consciousness  is  thought  and  reasoned  of 
as  though  it  were  an  inner  light,  which  illumines  by  its  radiance 
the  dark  and  winding  recesses  of  the  world  within,  Conscience 
is  the  voice  of  God,  speaking  with  the  distinctness  and  authority 
of  audible  speech. 

When  we  reflect  on  the  import  of  such  terms  in  their  applica- 
tion to  the  soul,  we  readily  assent  to  the  proposition  that  they 
are  metaphors,  either  fresh  or  faded.  But  we  do  not  always  ob- 
serve, nor  do  we  always  guard  against  the  insidious  influence  of 
the  image  from  which  the  m  etaphor  was  taken.  When  we  are 
occupied  with  the  thought,  and  not  with  the  word — when  we  are 
reasoning  earnestly,  or  seeking  a  solution  which  evades  us,  the 
material  image  may  supply  a  suggestion  which  is  more  plausible 
than  valid,  and  this  will  lead  to  a  conclusion  which  is  mislead- 
ing. In  such  cases  we  reason  and  infer,  not  from  what  we  think 
or  know,  but  from  what  we  say ;  and  the  very  language  which 
we  use  to  define  and  steady  our  thinking,  confuses  and  distracts 
it.  Inasmuch  as  all  the  language  which  we  use  is  materialistic  in 
its  origin  and  structure,  it  will  incidentally  favor  those  views  of 
the  soul  which  are  materialistic,  either  as  professed  theories  or 


24  INTRODUCTION.  §  25. 

insensible  associations.  The  history  of  psychology  is  a  perpetual 
testimony  to  the  truth,  that  materialistic  conceptions  and  theo- 
ries find  their  readiest  justification  in  the  terms  which  the  most 
thorough  spiritualist  is  forced  to  employ,  aud  that  a  quasi  ma- 
terialism seems  to  spring  out  of  the  very  language  by  which  it  is 
f  confuted.  Hence  it  becomes  so  important  that  the  conceptions 
which  we  form  should  be  sharply  distinguished  from  the  lan- 
guage in  which  they  are  uttered ;  and  that  the  student  of  psy- 
chology should  place  himself  ever  on  his  guard  against  the  in- 
fluence of  the  images  and  associations  which  are  continually  put 
into  his  mouth  by  the  language  which  the  necessities  of  his 
being  force  him  to  use ;  which  language,  however  high  it  may 
soar  into  the  spiritual,  can  never  free  itself  from  the  matter  in 
which  all  its  terms  have  their  origin. 


III. 

THE  FACULTIES   OF   THE  SOUL. 

§  24.  We  assume,  as  has  been  already  stated,  that 

Question     con-  ,  -i        •  i       i  •  -, 

cerningthefac-  the  soul  is  endowed  with  the  capacity  to  know  its 
own  phenomena.  Reserving  for  future  consideration 
the  nature,  the  development,  and  the  authority  of  this  power,  we 
proceed  to  apply  it  in  inquiring  what  consciousness  finds  to  be 
true  of  the  soul,  as  to  its  phenomena,  their  conditions  and  laws. 

The  inquiry  which  comes  first  in  order  is  the  following :  Do 
we  find  by  consciousness  that  the  soul  is  endowed  with  separate 
faculties  or  powers  ?  This  question  is  preliminary  to  all  others, 
for  it  must  be  answered,  to  direct  our  classification,  and  fix  our 
terminology. 

§  25.  We  answer,  first,  negatively.  The  soul  is 
not  Divided  into  separate  parts  or  organs,  of  which 
one  may  be  active  while  the  others  are  at  rest.  The 
plant  and  the  animal  have  distinct  and  separate  organs,  of  which 
each  performs  its  appropriate  and  peculiar  function,  which  none 
of  the  others  can  fulfil.  The  root,  the  bark,  the  leaf,  the  flower, 
in  the  one,  and  the  stomach,  the  heart,  the  skin,  and  the  eye,  in 
the  other,  each  performs  an  office  which  is  peculiar  to  itself. 
While  one  of  these  organs  is  active,  the  others  may  be  as  yet  un- 


§  26.  THE   FACULTIES  OF  THE  SOUL.  25 

developed  er  in  a  state  of  comparative  repose.  There  is  no  evi- 
dence of  the  division  of  the  soul  into  any  such  organs.  The 
whole  soul,  so  far  as  we  are  conscious  of  its  operations,  acts  in 
each  of  its  functions.  The  identical  and  undivided  ego  is  present, 
and  wholly  present,  in  every  one,  of  its  conscious  acts  and  states. 

This  peculiarity  of  the  soul  has  not  always  been  noticed  as  it 
should  be ;  certainly  it  has  not  always  been  kept  in  mind.  The 
so-called  faculties  have  often  been  conceived  and  described  as 
separable  organs  or  parts  of  the  soul's  substance,  any  one  of 
which  might  act  of  itself — nay,  one  or  another  of  which  might 
be  conceived  as  added  to  or  superinduced  upon  another,  giving 
so  much  enlarged  and  diverse  capacity.  Sometimes  the  faculties 
have  been  represented  as  acting  not  only  apart  from  one  another, 
but  apart  from  the  conscious  soul  itself;  the  soul  being  conceived 
now  as  an  arena  or  show-place  within  which  the  faculties  prose- 
cute their  work  or  play,  the  soul  being  impassive  and  incogni- 
zant ;  or  now  as  a  spectator  of  their  doings,  more  or  less  indiffer- 
ent or  interested.  These  representations  are  all  derived  from  the 
analogies  furnished  by  matter  and  its  actings ;  they  find  no  war- 
xant  in  our  conscious  experience. 

Again,  we  do  not  find  it  true  that  the  soul  can 

Each       faculty 

only  act  with  one  of  its  so  called  faculties  at  the  floes  not  act  at 

.  _    .  .  a  separate  time- 

same  instant  of  time,  feome  suppose, — perhaps  inter- 
ring from  a  misconstruction  of  the  doctrine  of  the  faculties, — that 
when  we  know,  feel  and  decide,  or  when  we  perceive,  remember 
and  judge,  we  must  perform  each  of  these  separate  acts  in  a  defi- 
nite and  distinctly  separable  instant  of  time.  Consciousness 
does  not  allot  to  each  distinguishable  kind  of  activity  a  separate 
interval  or  moment  of  duration,  but  before  its  eye  many  such 
are  united  in  one  undivided  act. 

§  26.   We    ask   next,   what  facts  authorize    the 
conception  and  the  use  of  the  term  faculty  ?    We  as-  MSata8re°f like 
sume  that  the   identical   ego,  or  7,  is  not  only  dis-  ^cnruke  one 
tinguishable  from  its  own  states,  but  that  each  of 
these  states  is  separated  or  individualized  from  every  other,  by 
occupying  a  separate  portion  of  time.     Each  of  these  states  is 
known  by  the  soul's  consciousness  to  be  individually  different 
from  every  other.     But  though  they  are  thus  divided,  they  are 
united  by  other  relations,  as  follows — • 


26  INTRODUCTION.  §  26. 

Their  elements       First,  their  prominent  elements  are  known  to  be 

are    like    and       ....  ,.,.,. 

unlike  in  quai-  alike  or  unlike  in  the  immediate  experience  of  the 
soul.  The  person  who  is  the  subject  of  each,  knows 
that  what  he  calls  his  acts  of  knowledge  are  alike,  and  also  that 
they  differ  from  his  states  of  feeling  and  of  will,  as  readily  and 
as  clearly  as  he  distinguishes  blue  from  red,  or  green  from  violet, 
or  hard  from  soft,  or  bitter  from  sweet. 

The  are  de-  Second,  the  elements  which  are  the  grounds  of  the 
pendent  on  one  classification  of  the  several  states  are  not  only  re- 

auother.  • 

cognized  as  like  or  unlike,  but  each  has  a  relation  of 
dependence  with  respect  to  the  others.  Not  only  is  one  state 
different  from  another,  as  a  so-called  state  of  knowledge,  feeling, 
or  will,  but  the  element  of  knowledge  is  known  to  be  the  neces- 
sary condition  of  the  element  of  feeling,  and  the  element  of 
feeling  the  condition  of  that  of  will.  A  man  does  not  feel,  except 
he  knows  or  apprehends  some  object  which  excites  feeling.  He 
always  feels  about  or  with  respect  to  something  cognized. 

When  he  would  increase  or  intensify  an  emotion,  he  applies 
the  intellect  to  the  appropriate  object  with  greater  energy  and  a 
more  exclusive  concentration.  When  he  would  excite  the 
feeling  anew,  he  brings  the  object  before  the  attentive  intellect  a 
second  time.  When  he  would  rid  himself  of  an  emotion,  or 
prevent  its  return,  he  occupies  the  attention  with  some  other 
object,  so  as  to  excite  an  emotion  that  shall  exclude  or  displace 
the  first.  There  is  a  similar  dependence  in  the  acts  or  states  of 
the  will.  To  choose,  we  must  not  only  know,  but  we  must  also 
feel.  If  an  object  could  be  simply  known,  and  excite  no  feeling, 
it  could  neither  be  chosen  nor  rejected. 

Third,    each    act    or   state    of  the   soul   is   cha- 

One  element  is 

preponderant     ractenzed  and  distinguished  by  the  presence  and  pre- 

in  each  state.  .  *     i_        •  "   i         i  1-1 

dominance  of  some  one  01  the  single  elements  which 
we  have  named.  That  is,  each  state  of  the  soul  is  more  con- 
spicuously and  eminently  a  state  of  knowledge,  feeling,  or  will ; 
some  one  of  these  elements  being  prevailing  and  predominant. 
It  is  natural  and  normal  for  the  soul  to  blend  all  in  one,  and  by 
the  laws  of  its  self-active-  nature,  to  spring  at  once  into  all  these 
forms  of  its  appropriate  energy.  At  every  instant  of  its  being 
it  should  leap  as  by  a  single  bound,  along  the  completed  curve 
of  its  several  capacities.  Sometimes  its  course  seems  to  be  aiv 


§  27.  THE   FACULTIES   OF   THE   SOUL.  27 

rested  ;  often  it  seems  to  be  detained  in  a  single  element ;  most 
usually,  we  may  almost  say  invariably,  one  only  is  prominent  to 
the  eye  of  consciousness,  the  other  elements  being  scarcely 
noticed  as  present  at  all.  We  distinguish,  remember,  and  name 
such  a  state  by  the  predominating  feature  or  element.  We 
think  of  and  call  it  a  state  of  knowledge,  feeling,  or  will. 
We  observe,  too,  the  appropriate  characteristics  of  the  function 
which  prevails,  because  a  single  element  is  conspicuous  in  each 
particular  state. 

§  27.  These  considerations  prove  that  the  several 

Faculty    de- 

states  of  the  soul  are  strikingly  distinguished  as  like   fined.  General 

0  J  authority. 

or  unlike.  The  capacity  of  the  soul  for  any  one  of 
these  distinguishable  kinds  of  activity  we  call  a  faculty.  We  do 
this  for  the  same  reason  that  we  ascribe  or  refer  any  material 
effect  or  phenomenon  to  a  special  power  as  its  source  or  cause. 
One  ore  of  iron  exhibits  magnetic  agency,  and  produces  magnetic 
effects.  To  another  these  are  wholly  wanting.  To  the  one  we 
ascribe,  to  the  other  we  deny  the  magnetic  power.  On  the  same 
ground,  if  there  were  no  other,  we  might  interpret  psychical 
effects  by  referring  each  to  a  special  psychical  power,  which  we 
call  a  faculty. 

But  we  have  higher  authority  for  recognizing 
special  faculties  in  the  sphere  of  spirit,  than  for  ad-  thurify? 
mitting  determinate  powers  in  the  world  of  matter. 
Of  material  agencies  we  perceive  nothing  but  the  effects.  Of 
the  states  and  effects  of  the  soul,  we  are  conscious  that  we  are 
the  profilers.  In  the  one  case,  we  stand  before  the  curtain  and 
see  the  result,  which  we  ascribe  to  an  agency  whose  arrangement 
and  working  we  cannot  directly  inspect.  In  the  other  case,  we 
are  ourselves  behind  the  scenes,  and  observe  the  working,  if, 
indeed,  we  do  not  ourselves  work  the  machinery.  To  certain  of 
these  actions,  issuing  in  certain  results,  we  are  prompted  by  no 
effort  at  all.  We  cannot  by  any  effort  prevent  ourselves  from  per- 
forming them,  and  we  ascribe  them  to  the  nature  or  constitution 
of  the  soul.  Hence,  with  eminent  propriety,  we  connect  with 
such  acts  the  term  faculty,  from  facilitas,  as  explained  by  Cicero : 
"  Facvltates  sunt,  aut  quibus  fadlius  fit,  aut  sine  quibus  aliquid 
wnfici  non  potest" — Cic.  Inv.,  1,  27,  41. 


28  INTRODUCTION.  §  29. 

§  28.  We  call  the  faculties  thus  ascertained,  the 

These  faculties  c 

common  to  aii  human  faculties.  We  do  so,  because  certain  states  of 
the  soul,  and  certain  elements  of  these  states,  are  be- 
lieved to  be  alike  in  all  human  beings.  No  soul  is  truly  human 
in  which  they  are  not  present.  The  exercise  and  experience  of 
them  is  necessary  to  every  perfectly  constituted  and  fully  devel- 
oped human  being.  They  may  not  all  be  active  in  an  infant  of 
a  few  days  old,  but  they  are  sure  to  become  so,  if  the  infant  lives 
and  nothing  interferes  with  its  normal  envelopment.  But  when 
we  say  that  the  soul  must  possess  these  p^  ,/ers  in  order  to  be  hu- 
man, we  do  not  assert  that  any  two  human  beings  possess  them 
in  the  same  proportion,  or  exercise  them  with  the  same  energy. 
All  men  perceive,  remember,  and  reason ;  but  all  men  do  not  per- 
ceive with  the  same  quickness  and  accuracy,  nor  do  all  men  re- 
member with  the  same  readiness  and  reach,  nor  do  they  reason 
with  equal  certainty  and  discrimination.  The  sensibilities  of 
some  men  are  obtuse,  and  of  others  are  acute.  The  choices  and 
practical  impulses  of  men  differ  most  of  all.  In  these,  each  man 
is  preeminently  himself,  sharing  in  no  sense  his  individuality  with 
any  other  human  being. 

The  faculties  §  ^9.  In  these  natural  and  original  differences,  the 
deit^of^ne"  faculties  are  not  altogether  independent  one  of 
another.  another.  A  powerful  intellect,  to  be  developed  into 

its  normal  attainment,  needs  to  be  stimulated  by  strong  feelings 
and  to  be  held  and  directed  by  a  determined  will.  Nature 
usually  provides  for  the  possibility  of  such  a  development,  by 
proportioning  the  several  endowments  of  the  soul  to  one  another. 
Hence,  a  man  superior  in  intellect  is  usually  superior  in  the 
capacity  for  energetic  feeling  and  effective  decision.  If  there  be 
a  marked  disproportion  between  any  one  and  the  others,  we  ob- 
serve it  as  irregular  and -unnatural. 

This  truth  needs  to  be  observed  in  the  development  of  the  soul, 
by  special  methods  of  discipline  or  plans  of  education.  The 
whole  soul  must  be  educated  in  the  harmony  of  its  powers,  or  it 
cannot  be  successfully  educated  in  any  single  one.  The  intellect 
cannot  be  trained  to  superior  activity  or  successful  achievement 
except  as  the  feelings  are  stimulated  to  a  strong  interest  for  the 
objects  to  which  the  intellect  is  applied,  or  the  ends  for  which  it 
acts.  The  will  must  be  taught  to  concentrate  and  fix  the  ener- 


§  30  THE   FACULTIES   OF  THE   SOUL.  29 

gies,  and  to  direct  them  to  harmonious  and  successful  activity. 
'We  cannot,  if  we  would,  train  a  single  power  alone.  When  we 
seem  to  bestow  all  our  power  upon  one  only  —  as  the  intellect  —  in 
the  education  of  ourselves  or  of  others,  we  are  always,  in  fact,  act- 
ing upon  the  whole  soul,  in  exciting  new  habits  or  kindling  new 
aspirations. 

§  30.  These  truths  also  strikingly  illustrate  the  The  unity  of 
organic  unity  and  the  eminent  individuality  of  the  the  souL 
soul.  We  need  ever  to  be  mindful  of  this.  Science  seeks  after 
resemblances,  and  thus  is  continually  impelled  to  overlook  differ- 
ences. Or,  if  science  notices  differences,  it  is  the  differences  by 
which  species  are  distinguished,  not  those  by  which  individuals 
are  separated.  With  those  individual  peculiarities  which  refuse 
to  be  classed  with  any  other  under  some  common  conception, 
science  disdains  to  concern  itself.  All  objects  in  Nature  have  in 
some  sense  an  individual  unity,  which  science  cannot  wholly  mas- 
ter and  resolve  ;  but  the  soul  is  more  intensely  and  eminently 
one  and  individual  than  any  other. 

We  say  a  piece  of  iron,  or  any  mere  aggregate  or  Different  kinda 
mass,  is  one,  when  its  constituent  particles  or  adorns  of  uuity- 
are  permanently  held  together  by  adhesive  attraction.  The  law 
of  chemical  affinity  makes  two  unlike  substances  into  a  third  un- 
like either,  which  is  eminently  one  by  the  completeness  of  the 
interpenetration  and  combination.  A  plant  is  one,  so  long  as  its 
several  organs  act  together,  and  the  functions  of  each  conspire 
with  the  functions  of  every  other  to  the  common  existence  and 
the  developed  growth  of  the  whole.  The  unity  of  the  plant 
arises  from  the  action  of  each  of  these  organs  with  and  upon 
every  other,  and  the  united  action  of  the  whole  through  the  in- 
tegrity of  an  undivided  structure.  The  same  is  true,  only  more 
strikingly  and  eminently,  of  the  living  animal.  The  animal 
ceases  to  be  one  when  its  structure  is  divided,  because  the  reci- 
procal action  of  its  several  organs  is  thereby  forever  rendered  im- 
possible. 

But  the  soul  is  one  in  a  higher  sense  than  the  plant 


or  the  animal  can  be.     It  has,  indeed,  no  material  unity  is  the 

highest  of  all. 

structure,  the  visible  and  tangible  bond  of  its  mate- 

rial organs.     Its  faculties  are  dependent  on  one  another  by  a 

union  so  intimate,  that  the  soul  cannot  act  with  one  except  as  it 


30  INTRODUCTION.  §  31. 

also  acts  with  the  others.  It  cannot  grow  in  the  capacity  or 
energy  of  one  except  as  it  grows  in  the  energy  of  the  others. 
Above  all,  the  soul,  in  all  its  conscious  activity,  refers  these  vari- 
ous forms  of  action,  thus  interdependent  on  each  other,  to  a  sino-le 
central  agent.  It  knows  its  unity,  in  a  large  portion  of  its  direct 
experience.  It  is  not  more  certain  that  it  acts  in  various  ways, 
each  intimately  related  to  one  another,  than  it  is  that  one  person, 
the  undivided  and  self-conscious  ego,  acts  in  all  these  ways.  First, 
this  ego  knows,  in  all  its  varieties  of  cognition,  and  all  the  variety 
of  objects  which  it  can  apprehend.  It  also  feels,  as  variously  in 
the  quality  and  intensity  of  this  kind  of  subjective  experience  as 
its  subjective  and  objective  conditions  allow.  But  it  is  by  its 
actings  in  choice,  or  as  the  will,  that  its  individuality  is  preemi- 
nently known  to  itself  and  by  itself  to  be  one,  as  it  makes  itself  to 
be  what  it  is  by  its  individual  acts. 

It  is  true  that  each  soul  is  like  every  other  soul  in  those 
powers  by  which  it  is  human.  It  is  unlike  every  other,  not  only 
in  the  proportion  of  the  faculties  and  attainments  which  are  com- 
parable to  those  minuter  shadings  of  form  and  properties  in  the 
individual  plant  or  animal  which  are  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
classifying  power,  but  also  in  the  conscious  and  necessary  refer- 
ence of  every  action  to  the  individual  ego.  It  is  preeminently 
one,  as  by  its  own  self-activity  it  gives  to  each  act  of  its  volun- 
tary and  rational  life  a  direction  and  energy  which  it  shares  with 
no  other  being  and  no  other  act  of  its  own  being. 

§  31.  But  though  the  soul  in  these  respects  is  pre- 

Unity  does  not  .  .-,  . .   ,  ,,          ,          .,.,  ~ 

exclude  com-  eminently  one,  it  is  not  thereby  single  in  the  sense  01 
excluding  a  complex  organization.  Bather  do  its 
unity  and  individuality  depend  upon  and  require  a  complex 
organism  of  faculties  and  powers.  We  observe  that,  in  all  organ- 
isms,  the  more  complicated  the  structure  is,  the  more  conspicuous 
is  the  individuality.  Just  in  proportion  as  the  structure  is  com- 
plex in  its  organs  and  in  the  variety  of  its  possible  functions,  just 
in  that  proportion  is  there  the  possibility  of  an  unshared  individ- 
uality, by  means  of  the  greater  number  of  particulars  in  which 
no  other  single  being  can  be  like  this  one.  But  the  more  largely 
complex  the  soul  is  in  the  wealth  of  its  known  and  its  yet  unre- 
vealed  endowments,  the  more  strikingly  is  its  unity  illustrated  in 
the  working  of  these  endowments  with  one  another  to  the  pro* 


§  32.  THE   FACULTIES   OF   THE  SOUL.  31 

gressive  development  and  increasing  power  of  a  single  living 
being.  But  its  unity  is  conspicuous  in  the  circumstance,  that  the 
being  refers  this  increase  of  knowledge,  skill,  and  moral  capacity 
to  itself,  through  its  conscious  knowiog,  feeling,  and  choosing. 
The  dignity  of  the  soul  is  shown  by  its  varied  adaptations  to  the 
'  universe  of  matter,  life,  and  spirit,  and  by  its  capacity  to  respond 
to  and  interpret  this  complex  universe  by  its  answering  powers^ 
but  most  of  all,  in  that  it  can  distinguish  itself,  as  the  one  agent 
and  patient,  from  everything  which  it  observes  or  cares  for. 

§  32.  The  powers  of  this  complex  yet  individual 
soul  with  which  our  science  is  concerned,  are  those  Powers  of  th« 

.  soul,  threefold. 

only  which  are  manifested  through  its  conscious  acts 
or  states.  All  the  other  powers  are  left  unconsidered,  except  so 
far  as  they  incidentally  relate  to  these  conscious  exercises  or  ex- 
periences. These  conscious  acts  or  states  are  separated  into  three 
broad  and  general  divisions  of  states  of  knowledge,  states  of  feel- 
ing,  and  states  of  will.  To  know,  to  feel,  and  to  choose,  are  the 
most  obviously  distinguishable  states  of  the  soul.  These  are  re- 
ferred to  three  faculties,  which  are  designated  as  The  Intellect,  The 
Sensibility,  and  Tlie  Will. 

This  threefold  division  of  the  powers  of  the  conscious  ego  is 
now  universally  adopted  by  those  who  accept  any  division  or 
doctrine  of  faculties.  It  has  taken  the  place  of  the  twofold  divi- 
sion which  formerly  prevailed,  into  the  understanding  and  the 
will;  according  to  which  the  sensibility,  or  the  soul's  capacity 
for  emotion,  was  included  under  the  will,  and  the  affections,  as 
they  were  usually  called,  were  regarded  as  phenomena  of  the 
will. 

Aristotle  divided  the  powers  of  the  soul  into  the  vegetative,  the  perceptive 
(including  the  phantasy),  the  locomotive,  the  impulsive  or  orectic  (including  the 
affectional  and  emotional),  and  the  noetic,  All  these,  except  the  noetic,  were 
shared  by  the  brutes.  The  Nous  was  divine,  perhaps  preexistent  and  imperish- 
able. Cf.  De  Gen.,  et  Cor.  ii.  3;  De  An.  iii.  5.  The  distinction  of  body,  soul, 
and  spirit,  as  we  have  already  noticed,  was  nearly  coincident  with  this,  though 
more  general,  and  recognized  under  the  HVeS/m  special  relations  to  the  Divine 
Spirit.  The  schoolmen  retained  this  division,  and  distinguished  three  classes  of 
souls,  as  follows :  the  vegetative,  of  plants,  the  vegetative  and  perceptive,  of  ani- 
mals, the  vegetative,  perceptive  and  rational,  of  man.  Each  of  the  last  twe 
have  the  impulsive  and  locomotive. 

The  moderns,  throwing  out  of  their  classification  the  powers  not  apprehended 
In  consciousness,  reduced  the  remainder  to  two :  the  intellectual  and  impulsive, 


32  INTRODUCTION.  §  32. 

or  the  powers  of  the  understanding  and  the  powers  of  the  will.     This  classifica- 
tion was  a  long  time  current. 

Aristotle  had  recognized  under  the  orectic,  or  impulsive  powers — the  powers  of 
the  will,  which  we  have  noticed — a  threefold  subdivision:  eiriOviLia,  Qvp.6s,  /3ovAi70ts. 
Theologians  had  for  a  long  period  distinguished  the  affections  and  the  will  and 
zealously  discussed  the  relations  of  the  one  to  the  other.  Locke  carefully  and 
earnestly  distinguished  will  from  desire,  without,  however,  proposing  a  threefold 
division  of  the  powers.  (Essay  B.  II.  c.  21,  gg  6,  30,  31.)  Reid  does  substan- 
tially the  same  inasmuch  as  he  retains  the  received  division  in  its  accepted  import 
in  his  Intellectual  Powers,  Essay  I.,  c.  7j  but  in  his  Active  Powers,  Essay  II.,  c's 
1  and  2,  he  limits  the  will  to  the  capacity  to  determine  or  choose,  excluding  from 
it  the  capacity  for  both  emotion  and  desire.  Dugald  Stewart  (Active  and  Moral 
Powers),  following  Reid,  adopted  a  threefold  classfiication  without  its  formal 
nomenclature.  But  Dr.  Thomas  Brown  goes  backward  from  all,  distinctly  assert- 
ing that  the  will  is  a  modification  of  desire,  and  a  volition  is  only  the  strongest 
or  prevailing  desire.  Inquiry,  etc.,  p.  1,  g  3.  Kant  subdivided  the  impulsive  and 
orectic  into  two,  viz.,  feeling  and  desire.  Kritik  d.  Urtlieils-Kraft,  Einleitung 
and  Anthropologie.  Prof.  T.  C.  Upham  distinguishes  the  power  of  the  soul 
formally,  as  intellect,  sensibility,  and  will. 

Hamilton  divided  the  powers  of  the  soul  into  the  faculties  of  knowledge,  capa- 
cities of  feeling,  and  powers  of  conation — L  e.,  of  desire  and  will.  Desire  and 
will  he  distinguished  respectively  as  a  blind  or  fatal,  and  a  free  or  deliberate  ten- 
dency to  act.  (Met.  Lect.  XI.) 

Among  modern  writers,  Herbart  and  his  school  have  made  them- 
Modern  oppo-  selves  conspicuous  by  rejecting  the  doctrine  of  faculties  of  the  soul 
tieg€  in  general,  and  of  the  intellect  in  particular,  as  inconsistent  with 

the  essential  unity  of  the  soul,  and  as  self-contradictory  in  both 
conception  and  statement.  But  Herbart  insists  most  earnestly  that  the  soul  pos- 
sesses a  capacity  for  self-assertion,  and  that  these  self-assertions  vary  both  in 
kind  and  degree  with  the  conditions  which  call  them  forth.  His  doctrine  is  not 
unlike  that  of  Leibnitz  respecting  monads  of  all  classes,  and  preeminently  of  the 
conscious  monads,  that  they  represent  or  reflect  all  other  objects,  and  that  in  this 
individual  capacity  lies  their  individual  being.  But  diverse  capacities  for  these 
varying  self-assertions,  or,  in  modern  terminology,  for  'reactions/  involves  all 
that  is  essential,  and  we  may  add,  all  that  is  objected  to  in  the  doctrine  of 
'faculties;'  the  one  being  no  more  incompatible  with  the  soul's  unity  than  is  the 
other. 

Herbart,  moreover,  affirms  of  the  ideas — '  Vorstellungen ' — all  that  he  denies  to 
faculties,  giving  them  the  power  to  act  and  react  on  each  other  in  such  a  variety 
of  ways,  and  with  independent  energies,  as  to  explain  all  the  varying  psychical 
phenomena.  While  he  contends  most  earnestly  that  the  soul  is  one — a  monad 
without  relations  to  space — he  makes  it  the  theatre,  literally  the  '  show-place/  of 
all  manner  of  active  and  antagonistic  agents,  which  are  evolved  from  its  own 
being  by  the  objects  that  excite  them. 

The  associational  and  cerebral  psychologists  reject  the  doctrine  of  faculties  as 
commonly  received,  and  resolve  all  the  operations  and  products  of  the  soul  into 
the  single  power  of  association  between  its  ideas,  this  being  in  their  view  the 
single  function  either  of  the  soul  or  its  ideas,  and  that  into  which  all  its  remain- 
ing powers  and  activities  may  be  resolved. 


§  34.  THE   FACULTIES   OF   THE   SOUL.  33 

§  33.  We  call  these  endowments  of  the  soul  facul- 
ties, powers,  capacities,  with  some  difference  of  mean- 
ing  and  application  for  each. 

Faculty  is  properly  limited  to  the  endowments  which  are  natu- 
ral to  man  and  universal  with  the  race.  We  also  limit  the  term, 
by  a  sense  of  natural  propriety,  to  those  endowments  which  are 
especially  spiritual,  and  which  manifest  the  independent  and 
higher  energy  of  the  soul. 

The  word  power  is  applied  to  the  active  properties  of  material 
objects,  as  well  as  to  those  which  pertain  to  spirit.  Originally  it 
was  employed  by  Aristotle  in  contradistinction  to  act.  Hence, 
power  and  action  are  always  contrasted,  and  beings  are  always 
contemplated  by  him  as  iv  dovd^i  and  iv  ivsprfa.  Force  is  quite 
as  frequently  used  as  power,  of  material  objects  and  agents,  and 
in  the  collective  sense,  the  forces  of  nature  are  more  frequently 
spoken  of  than  its  powers.  When  power  is  applied  to  the  soul, 
it  is  used  in  a  larger  signification  than  faculty ;  for  by  it  we 
designate  the  capacities  which  are  acquired,  as  well  as  those 
which  are  original.  All  men  are  said  to  be  endowed  with  the 
faculty  of  memory.  A  few  are  said-  to  have,  or  to  have  attained 
to,  the  power  of  remembering  with  surprising  reach  and  accu- 
racy. All  men  have  the  faculty  of  sense-perception,  but  seamen 
gain  the  power  of  seeing  objects  at  a  very  great  distance. 

Capacity  signifies  greater  passiveness  or  receptivity  than  either 
of  the  others.  Hence  it  is  more  usually  applied  to  that  in  the 
soul  by  which  it  does  or  can  suffer,  or  to  dormant  and  inert  possi- 
bilities of  being  aroused  to  exertions  of  strength  or  skill,  or  of 
making  striking  advances  through  education  and  habit. 

§  34.   The  normal   operations    of  each   of  these 
faculties  are  called  its  functions.     The  term  is  taken  state,  pheno- 
frorn  the  action  of  the  bodily  organs.     From  these  it 
is  transferred  to  organs  in  the  metaphorical  sense,  as  the  '  organs 
of  government/  and  the  '  functions '  which  they  perform.     In 
both  these  applications  it  has  come  to  mean,  first,  the  appro- 
priate operations  of  each,  and  then  the  activities  to  which  they 
are  appointed,  or  destined.     This  signification  appears  when  the 
term  is  applied  to  the  activities  of  the  powers  of  the  soul.     In  this 
use  it  is  assumed  that  there  are  activities  for  which  the  soul  is 
designed — modes  of  operations  which  are  adapted,  or  conduce  to, 

2* 


34  INTRODUCTION.  §  35. 

the  end  of  its  being.  Hence  the  normal  activities  of  these 
powers  are  called  functions. 

States  of -the  soul  are  often  spoken  of.  The  phrase  has  passed 
into  current  if  not  into  technical  use.  Strictly  interpreted,  it 
would  designate  the  more  permanent  or  enduring,  as  contrasted 
with  the  more  transient  phenomena.  It  has  com?,  however,  to 
mean  any  conditions  of  the  soul  whatever. 

Phenomenon  is  used  as  properly  of  spiritual  as  of  material 
beings  or  agents.  Literally,  it  means  that  which  appears  to,  or 
is  known  directly  by  the  senses  :  next  that  which  is  known  as  a 
fact  by  the  mind.  In  science,  it  signifies  more  precisely  that 
which  is  known  as  a  fact,  in  distinction  from  its  explanation  by 
a  force,  principle,  or  law.  Whether  this  explanation  has  or  has 
not  yet  been  attained,  makes  no  difference.  Whatever  is  or  is 
not  yet  explained,  when  viewed  solely  as  a  fact,  is  called  a  phe- 
nomenon. The  English  word  appearance  carries  with  it  the 
meaning,  or  at  least  the  suggestion,  of  unreality.  It  often  means 
and  is  understood  as  a  mere  appearance,  a  possible  illusion.  No 
such  signification  belongs  to  phenomenon,  as  a  technical  term 
Miat  has  become  established  in  psychical  as  well  as  in  material 
teience,  to  signify  an  observed  fact  or  event. 


IV. 

IS   PSYCHOLOGY    A    SCIENCE,    AND    WHAT    ARE    ITS    PRINCIPLES 
AND   METHODS? 

§  35.  In  the  preceding  chapters  we  have  impliedly 
ps^ifoTogy ;  it  answered  these  questions.  In  the  subsequent  ex- 
i?eienJe,d"*iVd  animation  of  consciousness  they  will  be  discussed 
uXudion?  °f  more  full7>  and  also  the  nature  and  authority  of 

psychological  science. 

Our  own  theory  may  be  briefly  stated,  thus:  The  facts  or 
materials  with  which  psychology  has  to  do  are  derived  primarily 
from  consciousness.  These  materials  psychology  seeks  to  ar- 
range ill  a  scientific  method,  and  to  explain  by  scientific  princi- 
ples. At  the  same  time  physiology  comes  to  the  aid  of  con- 
sciousness, by  furnishing  a  knowledge  of  the  functions  and  states 
of  the  body  which  prepare  the  objects  of  the  sense-perceptions, 
and  are  the  essential  conditions  of  the  development  and  the 


§36.  IS   PSYCHOLOGY   A   SCIENCE?  35 

activities  of  the  soul.  Both  these  classes  of  facts  must  be  con- 
sidered in  conjunction,  must  be  observed  with  attention,  must  be 
analyzed  into  their  ultimate  elements,  must  be  compared,  classed, 
and  interpreted  according  to  the  methods  which  are  common  to 
all  th«  inductive  sciences. 

So  far  it  would  seem  that  psychology  is  truly  an  inductive 
science.  It  is  distinguished  however  by  two  striking  peculiari- 
ties. First.  Its  subject-matter  is  attested  by  consciousness  to  be 
sui  generis,  consisting  of  phenomena  which  cannot  be  resolved 
into  material  entities  or  agents,  and  cannot  always  be  subjected 
to  or  judged  by  analogies  furnished  by  material  agents,  pheno- 
mena, or  laws.  Second.  This  subject-matter  is  in  part  the 
function  of  knowledge  itself,  the  very  agency  by  which  all 
scientific  knowledge  is  produced,  whether  of  matter  or  of  the 
mind.  This  special  and  fundamental  function,  psychology  must 
examine,  in  its  various  processes,  and  their  products.  By  this 
peculiar  feature,  the  science  of  the  human  soul  involves  the 
scientific  study  of  the  principles  and  laws  of  all  knowledge 
whatsoever,  and  of  each  one  of  the  sciences.  In  every  other 
feature  except  this,  psychology  takes  rank  with  the  other  induc- 
tive sciences,  and  is  co-ordinate  with  them  in  its  subjection  to  a 
common  method.  But  by  this  last  feature  it  becomes  in  a  sense 
the  arbiter  of  them  all,  as  it  tries  and  tests  the  methods  and 
principles  common  to  them  all,  itself  included.  While,  then, 
psychology  is  an  inductive  science,  with  a  subject-matter  of  its 
own,  it  is  also  in  a  certain  sense,  the  science  of  induction  itself. 
It  requires  us  to  find,  and  in  a  sense  to  justify  the  fundamental 
principles  of  all  the  sciences,  by  showing  that  such  principles 
exist,  and  demand  verification.  So  far  as  psychology  concerns 
itself  with  the  explanation  of  these  principles,  it  is  the  science 
of  sciences,  the  Prima  Pkilosophia. 

These  views  are  very  generally  received  in  respect  to  the  nature  of  psychology 
as  a  science,  in  answer  to  the  question  whether  such  a  science  is  possible.  The 
opinions  of  those  who  dissent  from  them  may  be  classed  as  follows : 

$  36.  A  very  large  number  of  persons  deny  that  psychology  can 
ever  become  a  science,  because  of  the  vagueness  and  uncertainty    Some  hold  psy- 
of  its    subject-matter.      Science,  they    allege,  knows  nothing   of       ^aguf ^o 'be 
powers,  either  in  matter  or  in  spirit.     It  does  not  concern  itself        a  science, 
with  the  constituents  of  things,  or  with  the  essence  and  ultimate 
properties  of  matter  or  spirit.     It  has  to  do  with  phenomena  only,  and  it  seeks 
to  learn  the  order  and  laws  of  their  occurrence  by  definite  statements  concerning 


36  INTRODUCTION.  §  38. 

their  mathematical  relations.  Force  is  measured  by  number ;  so  is  the  quantity 
of  matterj  so  are  pressure,  motion,  attraction,  and  repulsion,  in  short,  every 
thing  with  which  science,  as  such,  has  to  do.  The  range  of  science  proper,  they 
contend,  is  limited  within  the  domain  where  mathematical  relations  apply,  and 
cannot  include  the  facts  of  psychology  to  any  effective  or  valuable  result. 

It  is  sufficient  to  say  in  reply,  that  this  view  of  scientific  knowledge,  would 
exclude  the  science  of  life  in  all  its  forms  as  truly  as  the  science  of  the  soul.  It 
proves  too  much,  and  therefore  cannot  be  true.  Science  does  inquire  after  the 
powers,  the  conditions,  and  causes  of  phenomena,  as  truly  as  it  concerns  itself 
with  the  mathematical  relations  of  either.  Besides,  it  is  always  pertinent  to  ob- 
serve, that  the  power  by  which  we  are  impelled  to  seek,  and  by  which  we  attain 
scientific  knowledge,  is  the  only  authority  for  our  confidence  in  science  itself. 
To  distrust  the  possibility  of  exact  and  determinate  knowledge  of  the  conditions 
and  laws  of  this  power,  is  to  distrust  the  authority  of  science.  If  the  soul,  as  the 
agent  of  science,  cannot  itself  be  known  in  its  processes  and  their  results,  then 
the  processes  have  no  value,  and  the  products  no  binding  force. 

$  37.  The  materialists  of  every  sort  contend  that  a  science  of 
The  material-  the  soul  is  possible  and  real,  because  the  substance  of  the  soul  is 
psychology  material,  and  its  phenomena  can  therefore  all  be  explained  by  the 
laws  and  relations  of  matter.  Their  cardinal  axiom  is:  there  is 
nothing  substantially  existent  in  the  universe  except  what  has  extension  and  sen- 
sible properties.  The  phenomena  of  the  soul  must  therefore  be  the  manifestations 
or  actings  of  an  existence  of  this  kind,  and  can  be  resolved  by  scientific  methods 
just  so  far  as  they  can  be  referred  to  changes  in  the  constitution  or  the  actings 
of  an  extended  and  material  substratum.  We  pass  over  the  grosser  and  cruder 
theories  of  the  ancient  schools,  which  resolved  the  soul  into  some  form  of  refined  but 
unorganized  matter,  as  now  universally  outgrown  and  rejected,  and  observe  and 
notice  only  that  form  of  modern  materialism  which  passes  current  with  not  a  few 
scientific  men.  This  theory  makes  the  brain  and  nervous  system  the  proper  sub- 
stance of  the  soul,  and  explains  its  phenomena  by  the  peculiar  activity  of  this 
highly  organized  material  substance.  It  has  this  in  common  with  the  material- 
ism of  the  grosser  sort,  that  it  holds  it  to  be  impossible  that  there  should  be  any 
agent  of  psychical  phenomena  except  matter. 

§  38.  The  materialists  of  the  present  day  are  properly  called 
Cerebral  Psychologists,  and  plant  themselves  on  the  more  recent 
discoveries  of  physiology  in  respect  to  the  brain  and  nervous  sys- 
tem. These  discoveries  are  those  of  the  reflex  nervous  action  by  the  agency  of 
the  afferent  and  efferent  nerves,  made  by  Sir  Charles  Bell  j  the  discovery  of  the 
independent  activity  of  the  several  systems  of  nerves,  made  by  Marshall  Hall ; 
of  the  capacity  for  increased  nervous  energy,  and  the  flow  of  a  more  effective 
nervous  stimulus,  which  is  induced  by  the  repeated  action  of  any  organ,  whether 
internal  or  external,  whether  muscle  or  brain ;  of  the  changes  in  the  substance  of 
the  brain  attendant  upon  a  high  mental  development — a  change  in  bulk  and 
complexity ;  and,  last  of  all,  the  discovery  of  the  provision  for  the  consentient  or 
consilient  action  of  different  organs  of  the  body,  by  the  coordinating  agency  of 
tne  great  nerve  centres,  which  tendency  can  be  greatly  augmented  and  modified 
by  culture  and  habit.  These  physiological  facts,  combined  with  the  doctrine  of 
the  association  of  ideas,  which  is  resolved  by  many  into  the  physical  coaction 
and  coalescence  of  brain  movements  and  brain  cells,  are  the  data  or  material* 


§39.  IS  PSYCHOLOGY  A  SCIENCE?  37 

out  of  which  the  Cerebral  Psychologists  construct  their  science  of  the  human 
soul.  Some  cerebralists  venture  to  avail  themselves  of  the  as  yet  partially  estab- 
lished doctrine  of  the  correlation  of  physical  forces,  in  support  of  the  conclusion 
that  mind,  or  soul-energy,  is  but  the  spiritual  correlate  or  metamorphose  of  so 
much  brain  or  nervous  energy.  Many  of  these  views  are  ably  represented  in  the 
works  of  Professor  Alexander  Bain,  of  Aberdeen,  entitled  The  Senses  and  the  In- 
telfect,  and  The  Emotions  and  the  Will,  also,  Mental  and  Moral  Science,  etc. 

The  facts  and  phenomena  recognized  by  the  cerebralists  are  true  and  impor- 
tant. The  most  of  them  should  be  treated  of  in  anthropology,  or  the  science 
which  treats  of  the  relations  of  the  soul  to  the  body.  We  may  even  admit  that 
they  all  deserve  to  be  considered  among  the  conditions  of  the  purely  psychical 
activities.  But  they  are  only  the  invariable  antecedents  or  the  essential  condi- 
tions of  these  phenomena.  There  is  no  evidence  that  they  produce  these  pheno- 
mena ;  they  do  not  appear  among  the  constituent  elements  of  any  psychical  state 
or  act;  they  cannot  be  found  in  them  by  analysis;  they  do  not  explain  in  the 
least  the  original  capacity  to  produce  them ;  they  do  not  account  for  the  depen- 
dence of  one  of  these  classes  of  states  upon  another,  as  of  memory  upon  percep- 
tion, or  of  reasoning  upon  both.  These  cerebral  conditions  might  be  supposed 
to  exist,  without  the  occurrence  of  any  of  the  phenomena  in  question,  without 
perception,  memory,  or  reasoning. 

Moreover,  theso  professed  explanations  have  neither  meaning  nor  application 
except  as  they  suppose  the  mind  already  to  possess  a  knowledge  of  psychical 
phenomena  as  known  by  consciousness,  and  as  connected  by  certain  scientific 
relations  which  are  purely  psychical  in  their  origin  and  authority.  The  cere- 
bralist  talks,  like  every  other  man,  of  perceiving,  of  being  conscious,  of  re- 
membering, of  induction,  and  of  reasoning.  He  proposes,  as  problems  to  be  ex- 
plained, these  phenomena  as  dependent  on  and  connected  with  one  another  in 
the  experience  of  human  consciousness.  Of  these  facts  of  consciousness  he  con- 
tinually avails  himself,  to  give  meaning  and  significance  to  his  cerebral  analysis. 
In  short,  he  supposes  a  science  of  the  mind's  inner  experiences  which  he  pro- 
poses to  supplement  by  facts  or  laws  of  sense-observation,  using  the  facts  to  be 
explained  to  interpret  the  facts  which  explain  them.  Should  he  attempt  to  use 
the  nomenclature  of  his  own  science  in  place  of  that  given  by  the  science 
founded  on  consciousness,  he  would  fail  to  be  understood.  The  one  cannot  be  a 
substitute  or  an  equivalent  for  the  other.  A  science  supposes  a  knowing 
agent,  and  a  knowing  agent  is  something  other  than  a  throbbing  brain :  and  to 
know  even  the  functions  of  the  brain,  especially  after  a  scientific  method,  must 
surely  be  something  more  than  for  the  brain  to  exercise  a  function  in  respect  to 
itself  and  its  own  functions.  Such  a  conception  is  more  incredible  and  incon- 
ceivable than  the  conception,  which  is  so  often  stigmatized,  of  the  soul  as  con- 
scious of  its  own  operations.  A  soul  that  is  self-conscious  would  not  be  so 
singular  as  a  brain  functionizing  about  itself. 

§  39.  The  so-called  phrenologists  constitute  a  distinct  branch 
of  the  cerebral   school,  if,  indeed,  their  doctrines  have  not  been    logical 
superseded  by  the  more  exact  and   comprehensive  knowledge  of 
the  brain  on  which  the  cerebralists  build.     To  the  claims  of  the  phrenologists 
to  have  established  a  science  of  the  soul,  the  following  objections  may  be  urged : 
1.  They  have  not  proved  that  the  protuberances  of  the  brain,  or  the  cranium, 
on  which  their  science  is  founded,  correspond  to  the  psychical  powers  or  funo- 


38  INTRODUCTION.  §  40. 

tions  which  it  is  claimed  they  decisively  indicate.  2.  The  classification  of  these 
very  psychical  powers  which  they  adopt  is  illogical,  inasmuch  as  it  is  chargeable 
with  not  a  few  cross  divisions.  3.  The  classifications  and  arrangements  of  the 
whole  science  rest  for  their  verification  on  the  knowledge  of  the  soul  which  is 
given  by  consciousness.  It  even  requires  this  knowledge  to  supplement  its  obser- 
vations of  the  cranium.  It  is  consciousness  which  furnishes  all  the  facts  which 
are  to  be  explained,  and  which  is  the  test  of  the  correctness  of  the  classifications. 
Were  phrenology  established,  it  would  not  be  a  science  of  psychical  facts :  it 
would  serve  only  as  a  guide  in  the  use  of  certain  external  indications  as  explain- 
ing the  psychical  characteristics  of  individuals. 

The  question  may  here  properly  be  raised,  whether  the  brain  is  not  the  organ 
of  the  soul.  We  reply,  that  there  is  an  important  difference  between  asserting 
that  the  brain  is  the  substance  of  which  psychical  processes  are  the  functions, 
and  the  very  general  statement  that  the  brain  is  the  organ  of  the  soul.  This 
last  would  seem  of  itself  to  imply  that  the  brain  is  one  substance  and  the  soul 
is  another,  each  having  proper  features  and  functions  of  its  own.  To  say  that 
the  soul,  so  long  as  it  exists  with  its  present  corporeal  environments,  uses  and 
depends  upon  the  brain  as  its  organ  of  communication  with  the  material  world, 
and  sympathizes  with  the  physical  condition  of  the  brain  in  its  capacity  to  act 
with  effect,  is  to  say  no  more  than  the  truth.  This  dependence  and  sympathy 
may  hereafter  be  established  in  a  multitude  of  particulars  which  have  not  yet 
been  discovered.  The  brain  might  itself  be  subdivided  into  special  organs,  and 
for  eich  of  these  a  separate  and  as  yet  unknown  function  might  be  ascertained. 
The  relations  of  these  organs  and  their  functions  to  the  powers  and  acts  of  the 
soul  might  be  traced  out  with  surprising  minuteness,  and  still  the  brain  would 
not  be  proved  to  be  identical  with  the  soul  itself. 

$  40.  The  Associational  Psychology  represents  still  another 
tionalist  theory,  theory  of  the  science  of  the  soul.  It  is  founded,  as  its  name 
imports,  upon  the  fact  or  law  recognized  by  all  psychologists, 
thai  the  ideas  or  acts  of  the  soul  which  are  often  united  tend  to  recall  one  another 
morvs  readily.  This  law  is  applied  by  this  school  to  take  the  place  of  every  other 
law  Of  condition  of  psychical  activity,  and  to  exclude  every  other  power  or 
capacity.  It  is  made  to  stand  in  the  place  of  the  so-called  faculties,  and  even 
to  explain  the  origin  of  all  necessary  and  intuitive  truths.  The  school  numbers 
many  adherents,  among  whom  are  conspicuous  Hobbes,  Hume,  Hartley,  Bonnet, 
James  Mill,  John  Stuart  Mill,  Bain,  and  Herbert  Spencer.  Some  of  these  are 
more  consistent  and  extreme  in  their  conclusions  than  others,  but  all  may  be 
fairly  said  to  adopt  the  associationalist  theory  in  its  principal  features.  These 
common  features  are  the  following.  They  hold,  1.  That  a  psychical  state  is 
analogous  to  a  change  or  effect  in  a  material  object  as  being  a  simple  impression, 
or  changed  condition  which  is  simple — not  complex,  as  is  claimed  by  those  who 
find  in  every  such  state  a  conscious  relation  to  the  ego.  They  also,  hold,  that  it 
is  necessarily  produced  by  its  cause,  condition,  or  object.  They  deny,  distinctly 
or  impliedly,  the  truth  that  every  state  of  the  soul  must  be  performed  by  the  con-- 
scious  ego,  and  that  in  many  of  these  states  this  ego  is  active,  and  in  no  sense 
passive.  2.  They  teach  that  every  such  state  thus  necessarily  produced  and  pas- 
sively experienced,  tends  to  be  reproduced  with  its  attendants.  3.  A  repro- 
duced state,  unless  in  some  way  reinforced,  as  by  similar  conditions,  of  itself 
tends  to  be  and  is  reproduced  with  an  energy  that  is  weaker  than  that  of  the 


§  40.  IS   PSYCHOLOGY   A   SCIENCE  ?  39 

original.  (Cf.  Hume,  Bain,  and  Spencer.)  4.  If  it  is  often  reproduced  and  is 
reinforced  in  every  act,  its  energy  is  greatly  increased.  This  increased  energy  is 
manifested  subjectively  by  its  stronger  tendency  to  recur  again,  and  objectively  by 
the  greater  vividness  with  which  the  object  ig  represented.  Herbert  Spencer  in- 
sists that  the  facility  thus  acquired  becomes  literally  mechanical,  and  that  the 
acts  in  question  pass  entirely  out  of  the  domain  of  consciousness,  and  are  taken 
up  by  the  passive  energies,  first  of  the  associational  faculty,  and  then  of  the 
brain  and  nerve-cells.  In  this  way  they  become  the  material  for  propagation, 
through  transformations  of  the  nervous  substance  which  are  transmitted  from 
one  generation  to  another.  A  few  physiologists,  who  are  not  so  extreme,  account 
for  the  phenomena  in  question  by  what  they  call  processes  of  'unconscious 
cerebration.'  Every  activity  of  the  mind  not  occasioned  by  some  new  or 
original  impression,  is  the  action  or  product  of  this  tendency  to  recurrent  action, 
thus  weakened  or  strengthened  in  whole  or  in  part.  Imagination  is  a  weak- 
ened impression.  An  act  of  memory  is  a  somewhat  stronger  and  recurring  ac- 
tivity, bringing  up  a  more  perfect  reproduction  of  the  past.  Generalization  is 
a  more  vigorous  revival  of  some  part  of  many  original  impressions,  which  is 
capable  of  being  suggested  by  each  of  these  originals  or  their  parts,  and  made 
common  to  them  all.  Judgment  and  induction  are  similar  experiences  of  partial 
elements  of  more  widely  ramified  impressions.  All  these  processes  are  reduced 
to  the  more  vivid  experiences  which  result  from  many  similar  impressions; 
never  to  the  discernment  and  affirmation  of  similarity  in  the  parts  of  each  of  the 
objects  to  which  they  belong.  Similarity  itself,  as  the  ground  and  motive  to  the 
classification  and  interpretation  of  nature,  is  only  the  result  of  two  or  more 
passive  impressions,  and  never  an  intelligent  cognition  or  judgment.  It  is  not 
an  objective  fact  of  relation  knowable  by  the  intellect,  but  a  subjective  sensa- 
tion or  impression  more  or  less  frequently  recurring. 

The  belief  of  necessary  truths  or  fundamental  relations,  is  the  result  of  the 
frequent  conjunction  of  similar  experiences  made  inseparable  by  repetition. 
Thus,  the  relation  of  causation  is  resolved  by  Hume  into  the  customary  connec- 
tion of  ideas  or  objects.  Thus,  J.  Stuart  Mill  resolves  the  belief  in  any  neces- 
sary truths,  even  the  simplest  mathematical  postulates  or  axioms,  into  "  insepa- 
rable association,"  and  gravely  suggests  that  their  opposites  might  be  and  ap- 
pear just  as  axiomatic  to  a  community  trained  under  different  associations. 
Thus,  Herbert  Spencer,  in  his  Principles  of  Psychology,  resolves  our  a  priori  con- 
victions concerning  the  reality  of  space  and  time,  and  the  relations  which  they 
involve  (for  the  necessity  of  which,  as  realities,  he  contends,  against  Kant  and 
Hamilton),  into  the  invariable  conjunctions  which  first  created  a  persistent  ten- 
dency to  recurrence,  which  tendency  has  been  fixed  by  being  propagated  through 
countless  generations  of  human  beings. 

It  is  necessarily  implied  in  this  theory  that  it  dispenses  with  what  it  calls  the 
scholastic  doctrine  of  separate  faculties  of  the  soul.  This,  indeed,  is  its  pride 
and  boast,  that  it  makes  these  several  faculties  to  be  but  varied  results  of  the  sin- 
gle tendency  or  law  of  association. 

The  fundamental  defect  of  the  associational  school,  consists  in  this,  that  it 
does  not  distinguish  between  those  activities  of  the  soul  by  which,  so  to  speak, 
objects  are  prepared  for  and  presented  to  the  soul  for  its  varied  activities,  pre- 
eminently that  of  knowledge,  and  the  activities  which  the  soul  performs  with  re- 
spect to  them  when  so  prepared  and  presented.  An  impression  on  the  sensoriumi 


40  INTRODUCTION.  §  41. 

even  when  responded  to  by  reflex  nervous  activity,  is  not  the  act  of  knowledge 
by  which  the  mind  distinguishes  the  object  from  itself  and  from  other  objects; 
nor  docs  the  tendency  thereby  created  to  its  repetition  explain  the  act  of  imagi- 
nation or  memory  with  respe.ct  to  it  when  represented  a  second  time.  A  similar 
impression,  in  whole  or  in  part,  is  a  very  different  thing  from  that  apprehension 
•f  a  whole  or  part  as  similar  which  is  essential  to  generalization  and  reasoning 
as  acts  of  knowledge.  The  constant  conjunction  of  two  ideas,  in  consequence 
of  which  the  one  will  always  suggest  tho  other,  does  not  explain  the  relation 
under  which  the  mind  connects  them  in  an  act  of  judgment;  least  of  all  the  rela- 
tion by  which  it  joins  them  in  those  beliefs  which  are  necessary  and  intuitive,  as 
are  those  which  concern  the  relations  of  space,  time,  causation,  and  design. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice,  that  though  the  associational  school  is  plausibly  suc- 
cessful in  its  explanations  of  the  lower  activities  and  products  of  the  intellect, 
they  fail  most  signally  in  explaining  the  higher  operations.  J.  S.  Mill  supple- 
ments the  functions  of  the  associational  power  in  his  theory  of  reasoning  and  in- 
duction by  resorting  to  an  '  expectation  concerning  the  uniformity  of  nature/ 
which  neither  association  nor  induction  can  account  for.  Bain  resorts  to  tho 
emotional  nature  to  explain  belief,  and  Herbert  Spencer  must  fall  back  upon  the 
growth  of  two  nerve-cells  into  one,  propagated  indefinitely  through  successive 
generations,  to  account  for  a  priori  and  necessary  beliefs. 

The  associational  school  can  only  explain  the  higher  processes  and  products 
of  the  mind  by  explaining  them  away — by  causing  them,  under  the  pressure  of 
its  theory,  to  become  something  else  than  what  they  are.  Its  theories  and  ex- 
planations are  plausible,  because  the  single  principle  on  which  they  rest  is  so 
nearly  allied  to  the  pervasive  law  of  attraction,  which  is  so  potent  in  mechanical 
and  chemical  philosophy.  The  extensive  and  ready  favor  with  which  they  are 
received  as  the  only  truly  scientific  theory  of  the  mind,  is  but  a  single  example 
of  the  power  of  materialistic  analogies  and  prepossessions  in  the  judgments  of 
spiritual  facts  and  relations. 

The  associational  theory,  though  in  its  fundamental  principle  not 
necessarily  materialistic,  has  been  uniformly  received  by  the  cere- 
bralists,  especially  by  the  cerebralists  of  the  modern  school.  The 
doctrine  that  every  mental  process  is  the  result  of  the  association  and  blending 
of  ideas,  when  united  with  the  principle  which  explains  association  by  the  conjunc- 
tion of  nerve-cells  into  nerve-growths,  and  the  consilience  of  nerve  activities  by 
the  increased  energy  of  nervous  stimuli,  commends  itself  as  demonstrable,  rea- 
sonable, and  true  to  all  those  who  find  in  the  movements  and  growths  of  the 
brain  the  scientific  explanation  of  psychical  processes.  Bonnet,  Hartley,  Bain, 
and  Herbert  Spencer  impliedly,  are  eminent  examples  of  the  union  of  both  cere- 
bralism  and  associationalism  in  the  same  scientific  theory. 

g  41.  The  Metaphysical,  or,  as  it  is  called  by  some,  the   Con- 
Metaphysical    structive  theory  of  the  science,  remains  to  be  noticed.     This  as.- 
choiogyT*   ^    suines   that  psychology  can   become   a  science  only  as  it  is  ex- 
pounded in  the  spirit  of  a  system  of  speculative  philosophy  which 
is  first  assumed  or  proved  to  be  true,  and  which  must  be  established  as  true,  be- 
fore the  study  of  the  mind  can  be  made  truly  scientific,  or  even  before  it  can 
begin.     There  is  a  truth  in  the  assumption,  that  every  special  science  is  only  so 
far  scientific  as  it  rests  upon  true  metaphysics.    But  there  is  an  important  differ- 
ence between  the  correct  and  adjusted  statement  of  this  underlying  philosophy 


§  41.  IS   PSYCHOLOGY   A   SCIENCE  ?  41 

in  a  pei/ected  system,  and  the  investigation  of  these  truths  in  their  concrete  appli- 
cations without  the  aid  of  such  a  system.  In  psychological  studies  the  tempta- 
tion is  particularly  strong  to  view  the  facts  in  the  light  of  some  preconceived  and 
half-learned  philosophy ;  but  it  ought  for  this  very  reason  to  be  more  vigor- 
ously resisted.  It  is  in  the  order  of  nature  that  the  study  of  metaphysics  should 
follow  after  the  study  of  the  mind,  inasmuch  as  it  is  by  the  analysis  of  the  power  to 
know,  that  we  are  supposed  first  to  discover  what  it  is  to  know,  and  especially 
what  are  the  objects  and  relations  which  are  essential  to  science;  in  other  words, 
what  conceptions  and  relations  are  philosophically  valid  as  the  axioms  and  pos- 
tulates of  scientific  knowledge. 

To  pursue  the  reversed  order,  is  to  weaken  the  certainty  of  knowledge,  as  well 
as  to  confuse  and  embarrass  the  mind  of  the  student.  Such  an  error  of  method 
is  certain  to  be  revenged  on  speculative  philosophy  itself.  It  opens  the  way  for 
fantastic  dogmatism  on  the  part  of  the  teacher;  for,  as  soon  as  he  is  emancipated 
from  the  necessity  of  justifying  his  speculative  system  to  the  consciousness  of  his 
learners  by  the  facts  of  inner  experience,  he  will  be  tempted  to  be  positive  when 
he  is  not  certain,  and  to  be  fantastic  when  he  is  neither  logical  nor  clear.  It 
breeds  haziness  and  pretension  on  the  part  of  the  student.  In  attempting  to  fol- 
low a  guide  who  deviates  from  the  order  of  nature,  his  steps  cease  to  be  confident 
and  firm.  The  want  of  clear  insight  he  will  supply  by  pretension  and  conceit, 
which  are  both  parent  and  offspring  of  credulity  and  dependence. 

No  maxim  deserves  to  be  recorded  by  the  student  of  philosophy  in  letters  more 
clear  and  bright  than  this :  '  The  man  who  seeks  to  enter  the  temple  of  philoso- 
phy by  any  other  approach  than  the  vestibule  of  psychology,  can  never  penetrate 
into  its  inner  sanctuary ;  for  psychology  alone  leads  to  and  evolves  philosophical 
truth,  even  though  it  is  itself  subordinate  to  philosophy.'  The  investigator  who 
attempts  to  construct  psychology  by  the  aid  and  under  the  direction  of  a  meta- 
physical system,  contradicts  the  order  by  which  both  psychology  and  philosophy 
we  developed  and  acquired. 


THE   HUMAN  INTELLECT: 
ITS  FUNCTION,   DEVELOPMENT,  AND   FACULTIES 

A   PRELIMINARY    CHAPTER. 

._     ,  .  §  42.  We  have  considered  the  soul  as  capable  of 

Knowledge  de- 
fined, what  i»  various  functions  or  operations,  which  are  manifested 

it  to  know  ?  .  r 

to  consciousness  as  psychical  facts  or  phenomena. 
TJie  intellect  has  been  denned  : — the  soul  as  endowed  with  and 
exercising  the  power  to  know.  We  now  proceed  to  make  the 
intellect  the  special  object  of  our  study,  that  is,  we  enter  upon 
that  special  division  of  psychology  which  is  concerned  with  the 
capacities,  operations,  and  laws  of  the  human  intellect. 

The  distinctive  function  of  the  intellect  being  to  know,  we  at 
once  inquire,  i  What  is  it,  for  the  soul  to  know?'  The  fact  that 
we  exercise  the  function  of  knowing  is  attested  by  consciousness 
and  also  that  it  differs  from  feeling  and  willing.  For  this  conscious 
experience  there  can  be  no  substitute.  All  definitions  and  de~ 
scriptions  presuppose  that  the  person  to  whom  they  are  addressed 
can  understand  their  import  and  verify  their  truth  by  referring 
to  his  own  conscious  acts. 

What  consciousness  apprehends  and  distinguishes  may  be  more 
exactly  defined  as  follows : 

1.  To  know,  is  an  operation  of  the  soul  acting  as  the  intellect 
• — an  operation  in  which  it  is  preeminently  active.     In  knowing, 
we  are  not  so  much  recipients  as  actors.     We  do  not  merely  sub- 
mit to  the  impressions  made  upon  the  senses  from  without.     Nor 
are  we  the  passive  subjects  of  the  mechanical  operations  of  ideas 
already  acquired,  acting  upon  us  by  an  independent  force  and 
movement  of  their  own.     But  in  all  states  of  knowledge  the 

knows  itself  to  be  active. 

2.  The  intellect  exercises  its  capacity  to  know  under  certain 
42 


§  42.  ITS   FUNCTION,   DEVELOPMENT,  AND   FACULTIES.  43 

conditions.  Like  every  other  agent  in  nature,  it  is  limited  in 
respect  to  the  mode,  energy,  and  results  of  its  action,  by  the 
occasions  and  circumstances  under  which  it  acts. 

Thus  the  intellect  cannot  perceive  a  color,  a  taste,  a  tree,  a 
house,  unless  these  objects  are  presented  to  the  mind,  for  it 
to  act  concerning  or  upon.  So,  too,  it  cannot  remember  unless 
an  event  has  occurred  which  it  may  proceed  to  recall  and  recog- 
nize. Nor  can  it  imagine  or  believe,  without  certain  materials 
or  data,  by  means  of  which  it  creates  or  infers. 

These  conditions  are  objective  only.  There  are  also  conditions 
which  are  subjective,  as  the  mind's  capacity  to  know,  which  is 
always  implied;  its  disposition  for  present  activity,  its  bodily 
conditions  of  health  and  reason ;  also  certain  favoring  circum- 
stances, as  absence  of  preoccupation ;  and,  last  «f  all,  the  direc- 
tion and  fixing  of  the  attention  to  the  so-called  objects. 

3.  The  objects  which  condition  the  acts  of  the  intellect  are 
diverse  in  their  character.  Some  are  presented  from  the  world 
without :  as  the  objects  of  sense,  for  the  existence  and  nature 
of  which,  the  soul  itself  may  be  in  no  way  responsible.  Others 
are  presented  from  within,  as  the  operations  of  the  soul  itself,  in 
the  various  forms  and  the  endless  variety  of  the  states  of  know- 
ledge, feeling,  and  will,  all  of  which  are  apprehended  as  objects 
by  consciousness. 

Others  still  are  the  products  or  results  of  precedent  acts  or 
energies  of  the  soul — residua  from  objects  once  perceived,  waiting 
to  be  re-awakened — the  so-called  images  or  pictures  once  present, 
now  absent,  yet  capable  of  being  revived. 

It  is  manifest  from  this  enumeration  that  the  word  object  ia 
used  in  two  widely  divergent  senses — either  as  the  external  or 
material  object,  the  object-object,  as  it  is  often  called,  and  which 
may  be  explained  as  the  object  eminently  objective ;  or  as  the 
subject-object,  i.  e.,  the  mental  object,  or  the  object  created  by  the 
mind's  own  energy.  The  adjectives  objective  and  subjective,  also, 
follow  the  import  of  the  nouns.  Objective  is  applied  to  whatever 
the  mind  contemplates  as  an  object,  whether  it  be  a  subject-object 
or  an  object-object.  Every  relation  which  such  an  object  holds  is 
called  objective.  On  the  other  hand,  subjective  is  applied  to  the 
knowing  mind,  whether  it  is  conceived  as  apprehending  a  subject- 
object  or  an  object-object.  Subjective  is  also  applied  to  all  the 


44  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  44. 

psychical  experiences  and  acts;  to  the  feeling  and  willing,  as 
well  as  the  knowing  soul. 

§  43.  4.  If  the  soul  can  create  objects  for  itself  to 
which  prepays  know — as  in  the  cases  already  referred  to  of  con- 
kuowiedge.  sciousness  and  memory, — we  ought  carefully  to  dis- 
tinguish those  of  its  activities  by  which  objects  are,  so 
to  speak,  prepared  for  the  mind's  cognition,  from  the  special  ac- 
tivity of  the  intellect  in  knowing  these  objects  when  prepared  or 
presented  for  its  apprehension.  For  example,  the  energy  of  the 
soul  in  what  is  called  the  association  of  ideas — by  which,  on  occa- 
sion of  the  presence  of  an  object  known,  another  object  presents 
itself  in  order  to  be  known — is  clearly  distinguishable  from  the 
act  of  the  intellect  in  apprehending  that  object  when  presented. 
In  like  manner,  ^11  the  antecedent  preparation  by  which  material 
things  are  made  ready  to  be  known  through  the  joint  action  of 
body  and  spirit  in  the  sensorium,  is  plainly  diverse,  and  ought 
to  be  distinguished  from  the  act  of  the  mind  in  perceiving 
the  object  when  thus  made  ready. 

We  observe  also,  that  these  acts  or  functions  of  preparation, 
are  generally  not  conscious  acts,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  acts 
of  knowledge  are.  Some  of  them  may  be  wholly  removed  from 
consciousness,  as  is  the  activity  by  which  the  soul  preserves  and 
suggests  objects  once  known,  even  though  this  very  activity 
largely  depends  on  previous  conscious  operations.  Some  of  these 
may  be  entirely  removed  from  consciousness,  as  the  physiological 
or  psycho-physical  operations  which  conditionate  sense-perception. 
Others  may  be  entirely  within  the  range  of  conscious  observation, 
though  performed  with  rapid,spontaneous  and  uncontrolled  exertion. 

They  are  all  properly  psychical  acts,  and  are  appropriately 
treated  in  connection  with  those  activities  with  which  conscious- 
ness has  to  do.  We  cannot  understand  the  one  class  of  activities 
without  constant  reference  to  the  other. 

§  44.     5.  To  know — the  conditions  of  knowledge 

To  know,  im-  . 

plies  the  cer-     being  fulfilled — is  to   be  certain  that  something  is. 

tainty  of  being.  °  . 

-Knowledge  ana  being  are  correlative  to  one  another. 
There  must  be  being,  in  order  that  there  may  be  knowledge. 
But  it  belongs  to  the  very  essence  of  knowledge  to  apprehend  or 
cognize  its  object  to  be.  Subjectively  viewed,  to  know,  involves 
certainty ;  objectively  it  requires  reality. 


§  45.  ITS   FUNCTION,    DEVELOPMENT,  AND   FACULTIES.  45 

We  distinguish  different  kinds  of  objects  and  different  kinds  of 
reality.  Objects  may  be  psychical  or  material.  Their  reality 
may  be  mental  and  internal,  or  material  and  external,  but  in 
either  case  it  is  equally  a  reality.  The  spectrum  which  the 
camera  paints  on  the  screen,  the  reddened  landscape  seen  through 
a  colored  lens ;  the  illusion  that  crosses  the  brain  of  the 
lunatic,  the  vision  that  frightens  the  ghost-seer;  the  thought 
that  darts  into  the  fancy  and  is  gone  as  soon,  each  as  really  exists 
as  does  the  matter  of  the  solid  earth,  or  the  external  forces  of 
the  cosmical  system.  It  is  true,  one  kind  of  existence  and  reality 
is  not  as  important  to  us  as  is  the  other ;  we  dignify  one  class  as 
real,  and  call  the  other  unreal.  We  name  some  of  these  objects 
realities,  and  others  shadows  and  unreal ;  but,  philosophically 
speaking,  and  so  far  as  the  act  of  knowledge  is  concerned,  they 
are  alike  real  and  are  alike  known  to  be. 

The  word  being  is  sometimes  contrasted  with  phenomenon.  It 
is  obvious  that  in  that  case  being  is  not  used  in  the  sense  in  which 
we  have  defined  it;  i.  e.,  as  equivalent  to  a  knowable  object.  When 
used  in  such  a  contrast,  we  oppose  permanent,  or  independent 
being,  to  transient,  or  dependent  being. 

We  often  err  in  making  one  kind  of  reality  indicate  another. 
We  do  not  err  in  not  knowing  that  something  is,  but  in  mistaking 
it  for  something  which  it  is  not.  We  do  not  err  as  to  that  the 
being  is,  but  as  to  what  it  is.  We  do  not  err  as  to  its  beingness 
or  entity,  but  as  to  its  relations. 

This  leads  us  to  observe  : 

§  45.  6.  In  knowing,  we  apprehend  not  only  that 
objects  exist,  but  also  that  they  exist  in  certain  rela-     Of  relations. 
tions.     It  is  essential  to  the  definition  of  knowledge, 
not  only  that  we  know  objects  as  existing,  but  that  we  know 
them  as  related.     We  cannot  even  know  two  thought-objects  as 
existing  without  also  knowing  that  the  one  is  not  the  other.     We 
cannot  notice  two  leaves,  without  knowing  that  they  are  alike  or 
unlike  in  form,  surface,  or  color.     We  cannot  observe  two  oc- 
currences without  referring  them  to  the  same  or  different  causes, 
etc.,  etc. 

It  may  be  objected  that,  although  it  may  be  true  that  when- 
ever two  objects  are  known  by  a  single  act,  they  must  be  known 
in  relation,  yet  it  is  not  so  when  the  object  is  single.  To  this  we 


46  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  46, 

reply,  that  it  is  impossible  that  an  object  should  be  known  singly 
and  apart  from  every  other.  A  single  object  must  be  known  by 
some  agent,  and  it  cannot  be  known  by  that  agent  unless  the 
object  is  distinguished  from  the  agent,  and  from  his  act  in  know- 
ing :  but  to  be  distinguished  is  to  be  known  in  the  relation  of 
diversity.  The  attention  may  not  be  strongly  fixed  on  the  rela- 
tion— it  may  seem  to  be  engrossed  by  either  of  the  two  objects- 
but  their  diversity  cannot  be  unknown. 

But  there  is  scarcely  such  a  thing  supposable  as  a  single 
object.  No  single  object  actually  exists  in  the  world  of  matter  or 
of  mind.  Every  so-called  object  or  event  in  nature,  every  single 
state  of  mind,  will  readily  resolve  itself  before  the  attentive  eye 
into  many  separable  elements  existing  in  relations  to  each  other, 
and  held  together  as  one  thing  by  the  cementing  force  of  these 
bonds.  An  apple,  an  orange,  a  pebble,  nay,  even  a  grain  of  sand, 
consists  of  parts  not  a  few,  united  into  one  perceived  whole.  A 
mental  state,  however  simple,  is  in  its  essential  nature  complex, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  special  relations  of  time  and  quality  which 
distinguish  it  from  every  other. 

This  prepares  us  to  assert  that  to  know,  always  involves  two 
comprehensive  acts,  each  of  which  corresponds  to  the  other — the 
act  of  separation,  or  resolving  objects  as  wholes  into  their  parts 
or  distinguishable  elements,  and  the  act  of  uniting  or  combining 
these  parts  into  their  wholes.  These  acts  are  technically  termed 
analysis  and  synthesis,  and  they  are  present  in  every  form  and 
variety  of  knowledge.  In  sense-perception  the  different  parts 
of  material  objects  and  the  objects  themselves,  are  first  distin- 
guished and  then  united  under  relations  of  space  and  time.  In 
consciousness  they  are  connected  as  coexistent,  successive,  or  pro- 
duced by  the  active  ego.  In  imagination  they  are  again  sepa- 
rated and  reunited.  In  thought  or  intelligence,  they  are  again 
divided,  to  be  re-combined  as  constituents  of  general  notions  or 
concepts,  of  judgments,  arguments,  inferences,  and  systems. 
Thought,  indeed,  tends  to  bring  all  knowledge  into  the  unity  of 
common  properties,  powers,  laws,  and  end^. 

§  46.  7.  The  process  or  act  of  knowledge  is  con> 

cess6™  *  kmw-  plete  when  it   is  matured  into  a  product  and   this 

product  itself  becomes  an  object  to  the  mind's  future 

knowing.     At   one   time  the  whole  of  a  mental   state  becomes 


§  47.         ITS   FUNCTION,  DEVELOPMENT,  AND    FACULTIES.  47 

such  an  object ;  at  another,  some  one  element  of  a  single  mental 
state  is  detached  from  the  act  that  produced  it,  and  becomes  en- 
dowed, so  to  speak,  with  a  separate  life.  This  product,  so  far  as 
it  exists,  exists  as  a  mental  transcript  or  representation  of  the 
original,  whether  that  original  were  a  subject-object  or  an  object- 
object.  It  is  also  capable  of  being  recalled,  and  of  itself  recalling 

its  original. 

The  power  of  producing  such  permanent  and  reproducible 
results  is  essential  to  the  perfection  and  the  utility  of  the  act 
of  knowing.  It  is  so  essential,  that  upon  it  depend  the  simplest 
acts  of  the  memory  and  the  imagination,  without  which  the 
mind  would  be  limited  to  the  present,  and  could  neither  gather 
instruction  from  the  past,  nor  apply  wisdom  to  the  future. 
The  higher  processes  by  which  man  explains  the  powers  and  laws 
of  nature  would  otherwise  be  impossible,  and  the  capacity  to  use 
these  powers  and  to  apply  these  laws  in  any  practical  service 
would  be  excluded  altogether. 

The  knowledge  which  is  thus  separated  fiom  the  original  ac- 
tivity is  called  representative  knowledge,  with  reference  to  the 
original  act  of  acquiring,  and  mediate  or  represented  knowledge, 
with  reference  to  the  original  objects  known.  The  products  thus 
preserved  are  called  acquired  or  positive  knowledge. 

§  47.  8.  The  same  act  of  knowledge,  with  similar 

The  act    of 

Abjective  conditions,  may  be  performed  with  greater  knowing  is  di- 
or  less  energy.  This  greater  or  less  energy  in  the  energy.  Atten- 
operation  of  knowing  is  called  attention ;  which 
Word,  as  its  etymology  suggests,  is  another  term  for  tension  or 
effort,  and  was  doubtless  first  transferred  to  the  spiritual  opera- 
tion from  the  strained  condition  of  the  part  or  whole  of  the 
bodily  organism,  which  accompanies  or  follows  such  effort.  This 
effort  is  manifested  in  the  more  or  less  exclusive  and  complete 
occupation  of  the  knowing  power  by  the  object  or  relation  that 
is  apprehended.  This  greater  or  less  effort  of  attention  is  fol- 
lowed by  the  greater  or  less  distinctness,  vividness,  and  complete- 
ness in  the  objects  apprehended,  and  in  the  objects  retained 
among  the  mind's  permanent  possessions,  as  also  by  a  greater  or 
less  facility  in  exercising  a  similar  activity  a  second  time. 

Some  of  these  beings  and  relations  are  discerned  by  the  mind 
with  far  greater  ease  than  others.  To  hold  the  mind  to  certain 


48  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  48. 

classes  of  objects  and  relations,  is  comparatively  easy,  requires 
little  or  no  exertion,  and  is  accomplished  with  spontaneous 
facility.  To  know  so  as  to  master  an  unfamiliar  object,  always 
involves  effort  at  the  first ;  and  a  ready  facility  can  only  be  at- 
tained by  frequent  repetition.  Why  or  how  this  is  so,  we  need 
not  here  explain.  The  fact  is  attested  by  universal  observation 
It  is  natural  and  soon  becomes  easy  to  all  men  to  attend  te 
material  objects,  up  to  a  certain  degree  of  minuteness.  It  ia 
comparatively  difficult  and  unnatural  to  consider  closely  the  ex- 
periences and  processes  of  the  soul.  It  is  easy  to  decide  upon 
the  comparative  length  and  breath  of  two  corporeal  objects.  It 
is  not  so  easy  to  apprehend  the  parts  and  relations  of  a  ma- 
thematical theorem  or  of  a  logical  argument.  The  easier  and 
more  natural  processes  are  performed  by  all  men.  The  more 
difficult  and  less  natural  are  reserved  for  the  few.  For  facility 
in  the  one,  that  education  which  nature  furnishes  to  all,  is  amply 
sufficient.  For  skill  and  readiness  in  the  other,  special  discipline 
and  culture, — literally  great  pains-takiug, — are  requisite. 

The  easier  and  spontaneous  processes  are  first  performed,  and 
are  therefore  the  earliest  perfected  and  matured.  The  more  diffi- 
cult and  artificial  are  exercised  next  in  order;  and  readiness  and 
skill  in  using  them  is  reached  at  a  later  period.  The  powers  of 
sense  and  outward  observation  are  first  developed,  next  those  of 
memory  and  imagination,  and  last  of  all,  those  of  reflection, 
thought,  and  reason. 

As  it  is  with  the  intellectual  processes,  so  is  it  with  their  pro- 
ducts. We  have  seen  how  the  products  are  related  to  the  pro- 
cesses ;  that  as  the  mental  processes  are  employed  and  perfected 
with  energetic  attention,  so  the  mental  products  are  evolved  in 
completed  perfection,  as  naturally  and  as  certainly  as  the  ripe 
fruit  or  perfected  seed  drops  from  the  plant  or  tree  which  has 
rightly  elaborated  its  organic  processes. 

§  48.  9.  In  this  way  there  comes  to  be  an  organic 

The    psycholo-  J 

gicai  and  logical  connection  among  the  products  of  the  intellect,  cor- 
relation of  pro-  °  l    .  „ 
cesses  and  pro-  responding  to   the  organic  relations  or  the  several 

processes  out  of  which  they  grow.  This  relation,  as 
it  depends  on  the  development  of  the  soul  itself,  is  called  psy- 
chological; as  it  implies  antecedence  and  subsequence  of  time,  it 
is  called  chronological. 


§  48.          ITS   FUNCTION,  DEVELOPMENT,  AND    FACULTIES.  49 

Besides  the  psychological  or  chronological  relation  of  the 
powers  and  products  to  one  another,  there  is  still  another,  which 
is  more  important  and  fundamental,  and  that  is  their  philosophv- 
eal  or  logical  relation. 

We  use  one  of  these  kinds  of  knowing  to  supplement  the 
other,  and  often  not  only  to  supplement,  but  even  to  correct  its 
operations  and  results.  Thus  we  reason  to  conclusions  which  we 
cannot  observe  by  the  senses  or  experience  in  consciousness.  We 
infer  results  which  we  cannot  try  by  experiment,  and  we  predict 
them  before  it  is  time  for  them  to  occur.  We  correct  rash  con- 
clusions, by  looking  at  principles  and  laws.  We  deny  assertions, 
however  confident,  by  employing  arguments.  We  question  so- 
called  facts  because  they  do  not  square  with  an  established 
theory. 

Corresponding  to  the  relation  between  these  processes  of  know- 
ing, there  is  the  relation  of  logical  dependence  or  of  rational  con- 
nection between  their  products.  One  conception  is  subordinate 
to  another,  as  a  species  to  a  genus  ;  or  one  is  a  property  or  at- 
tribute of  another,  as  a  quality  of  a  substance ;  or  one  is  con- 
tained in  another,  as  an  element  in  its  definition ;  or  is  given  as 
a  reason  for  another,  as  a  proof  for  an  assertion,  a  premise  for  a 
conclusion,  a  datum  for  an  induction,  or  a  means  to  an  end. 
Many  conceptions  and  truths  are  also  capable  of  being  united  in 
mutual  relations  of  classification  and  explanation,  as  constituents 
of  a  system.  All  these  are  examples  of  logical  relations  in 
mental  products. 

The  logical  relations  of  the  products  grow  out  of  the  philoso- 
phical dependence  of  the  processes  from  which  the  products  are 
evolved.  But  inasmuch  as  the  products  are  expressed  in 
language,  and  are  made  objective  to  the  mind,  their  logical  and 
objective  relations  are  more  striking  and  prominent  than  the 
subordination  of  the  acts  of  knowledge  to  one  another  when 
psychologically  considered.  The  rational  faculty  asserts  for 
itself  intellectual  authority  over  the  lower  powers,  by  asserting 
for  its  products,  the  place  of  criteria,  rules,  reasons,  and  princi- 
ples in  respect  to  the  products  of  the  lower.  Hence  the  objec- 
tive or  logical  relations  are  more  conspicuous  than  the  psycho- 
logical and  subjective. 

We  therefore  set  up  a  broad  distinction  between  two  kinds  of 
knowledge,  calling  the  one  empirical  and  the  other  philosophical 


50  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  4& 

the  one,  knowledge  by  observation,  and  the  other,  knowledge  by 
principles  or  reasons.  "We  should  remember,  when  we  make 
this  distinction,  that  the  same  mind  uses  two  ways  or  processes 
of  knowing,  and  that  these  supplement  one  another.  There 
must,  then,  be  a  relation  of  dependence  between  the  two.  The 
one  must  be  subject  to  the  other,  in  the  mind's  own  judgment, 
and  according  to  the  ordinances  of  the  mind's  own  constitution. 
The  mind  that  observes  and  acquires,  knows  that,  by  thinking,  it 
can  correct  and  aid  its  own  observing,  and  that  the  one  method 
of  knowing  has  a  certain  authority  over  the  other. 

Thus,  when  we  analyze  a  substance,  we  determine  the  qualities 
that  are  common  to  its  class,  and  so  are  enabled  to  define  a 
general  conception,  by  resolving  it  into  its  constituent  or  neces- 
sary elements.  We  account  for  or  explain  a  phenomenon  which 
we  observe,  or  a  fact  of  which  we  hear,  by  referring  to  the  causes 
or  forces  by  which  it  was  produced ;  and  these  very  causes  or 
forces  we  interpret  still  further  by  the  laws  according  to  which 
they  act;  or  we  round  off  and  complete  the  explanation  by 
stating  the  adaptations  to  an  end  or  assumed  design. 

The  psychological  and  logical  relations  of  knowledge  do  not 
always  coincide.  The  order  of  intellectual  growth  and  of  psy- 
chological development  does  not  agree  with  the  order  of  logical 
dependence  and  of  philosophical  arrangement.  That  which  is 
last  in  actual  attainment,  is  first  in  logical  importance.  The 
truths  and  relations  which  the  mind  is  the  latest  and  the  slowest 
to  develop  and  assent  to,  may  be  those  which  are  fundamental 
to  its  rational  knowledge.  It  may  even  be  taken  as  a  maxim, 
that  what  is  psychologically  last,  is  first  in  logic  and  in  reason. 

Another  and  still  higher  activity  of  the  intellect  is 
'  the   critical  or   speculative.      It   reaches   this   when 

lSge.  °f  having  attained  the  command  of  its  higher  faculties, 
and   developed   the    familiar   principles    and    rules 
which  they  involve,  it  applies  them  in  judging  the  mind  itself, 
and  preeminently  its  higher  powers,  for  the  purpose  of  testing 
their   trustworthiness   and    examining    their    authority.      After 
•»iestioning  every  other  agent  in  the  universe,  and  judging  of  its 
workings,  it  turns  its  scrutiny  in  upon  itself,  to  test  the  processes 
by  which  it  knows,  and  even  the  very  rules  and  principles  which 
it  imposes  upon  every  thing  besides  ;  itself  included. 


§  49.          ITS    FUNCTION,  DEVELOPMENT,  AND    FACULTIES.  51 

$  49.  The  consideration  of  these  facts  and  relations,  enables  us 
to  trace  the  growth  of  the  mind  through  the  stages  of  its  normal  lectual  develop- 
development.  This  development  begins  with  the  beginnings  of  ment-  growtk 
attention.  Before  this,  its  activities  are,  as  it  were,  rudimental 
only.  From  this  condition  the  mind  awakes  when  some  object  attracts  and  holds 
its  attention.  The  infant's  power  to  know  begins  to  be  developed  when  it  begins 
to  attend.  As  soon  as  the  infant  begins  to  notice,  its  vacant  countenance  for  the 
first  time  assumes  the  expression  of  intelligence,  and  is  lighted  with  the  dawn 
of  intellectual  activity.  Attention  gives  discrimination,  and  discrimination  im- 
plies objects  discriminated.  The  first  objects  distinguished  are  objects  of  sense. 
The  sensible  objects  that  are  first  mastered  are  those  which  relate  to  its  wants, 
and  generally,  so  far  only  as  they  are  related  to  these  wants;  first  to  its  appetites, 
then  to  its  affections  and  desires.  With  the  discernment  of  these  objects,  in  their 
relations  to  these  sensibilities  and  desires,  begins  also  the  direction  of  the  active 
powers  by  intelligence. 

But  though  the  attention  is  at  first  chiefly  occupied  with  sensible  objects,  and 
these  prominently  in  their  relations  to  the  sensibilities  and  the  practical  wants,  it 
is  not  wholly  neglectful  of  the  psychical  operations  and  the  psychical  self.  At  a 
very  early  period  the  body  is  distinguished  from  the  material  world  of  which  it 
forms  a  part.  The  soul  also  begins  to  be  apprehended  as  diverse  from  the  body, 
as  soon  as  the  purely  psychical  emotions,  as  the  love  of  power  and  sympathy, 
or  the  irascible  passions,  are  vividly  experienced. 

As  fast  as  the  attention  masters  distinct  objects,  it  must  separate  them  into 
separable  ideas  or  images,  which  are  henceforth  at  the  service  of  the  imagina- 
tion and  the  memory.  These  reappear  in  the  occasional  dream-life  that  begins  to 
disturb  what  was  hitherto  the  animal  sleep  of  the  infant.  Memory  begins  to 
recall  past  experiences  of  knowledge  and  feeling.  Recognition  finds  old  and 
familiar  acquaintances  in  the  objects  seen  a  second  time.  At  a  later  period,  ima- 
gination begins  to  imitate  the  actions  and  occupations  of  older  persons,  and 
furnishes  endless  and  varied  playwork  for  childhood  in  the  busy  constructions 
of  the  never-wearied  fancy;  while  it  irradiates  the  emotional  life  with  perpetual 
and  inextinguishable  sunshine. 

Slowly,  the  rudiments  of  thinking,  or  the  rational procewe*,  begin  to  be  learned 
and  practised.  The  attention  not  only  discriminates,  but  compares.  As  it  com- 
pares, it  discerns  likenesses  and  differences  in  qualities  and  relations.  These  it 
thinks, apart  from  the  individual  objects  to  which  they  pertain.  It  groups  and" 
arranges,  under  the  general  conceptions  thus  formed,  the  individuals  and  species 
to  which  they  belong.  To  these  activities  language  furnishes  its  stimulus  and 
lends  its  aid.  Inasmuch  as  there  can  be  but  a  limited  language  without  generali- 
sation, the  infant  or  child  is  forced  to  think,  by  the  multitude  of  words  which 
catch  its  ear  and  force  themselves  upon  its  attention ;  each  representing  the  pre- 
vious thinking  of  other  men,  and  even  of  other  generations. 

With  classifying,  are  intimately  allied  the  higher  acts  of  tracing  effects  to 
causes  and  illustrating  causes  by  effects.  Then,  inductions  are  made  by  interpre- 
ting similar  qualities  and  causes,  as  exhibited  in  experience  and  elicited  by 
experiments.  The  mind  becomes  possessed  of  principles  and  rules,  which  it 
applies  in  deductions  both  to  prove  and  explain.  The  powers  and  forces 
of  matter  and  spirit  begin  to  be  discerned,  as  the  result  of  induction  and  deduc- 
tion combined.  The  relations  of  these  powers  to  their  conditions,  and  to  on« 


52  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  49. 

another,  as  well  as  to  motion,  time,  and  space,  begin  to  be  fixed  and  definitely 
stated  and  the  laws  of  matter  and  of  spirit  are  ascertained  in  a  wider  or  more 
limited  range  and  application.  Science  arranges  all  beings  and  all  events  into 
the  order  of  completed  systems,  by  means  of  the  processes  of  thought;  the 
world  of  nature  is  recast  into  a  new  spiritual  structure,  under  the  relations  by 
which  thought  decomposes  and  recombines  its  individual  beings  and  events, 
as  presented  to  observation  under  the  relations  of  space  and  time.  Adaptation 
and  design  shoot  golden  threads  of  light  and  order  through  that  otherwise 
pale  and  lifeless  system  of  nature,  which  science  reconstructs  out  of  blind 
forces  and  fixed  mechanical  laws.  The  originating  and  intelligent  intellect 
of  the  Eternal  Creator  and  Designer  is  reached,  as  the  first  assumption  and  the 
last  result  of  scientific  thought. 

Last  of  all,  thought  turns  back  upon  itself,  and  critically  analyzes  all  its 
knowledge,  and  its  very  power  to  know.  It  inquires  into  and  scrutinizes  its 
acquisitions  and  its  assumptions,  and  challenges  its  own  confidence  in  its  most 
familiar  processes  and  beliefs.  It  seeks  to  justify  to  itself  its  acquired  knowledge, 
its  science,  and  its  faith,  by  retracing,  under  the  guidance  of  logical  relations, 
every  step  it  has  taken,  and  every  stage  through  which  it  has  passed  in  its  de- 
velopment and  growth.  It  lays  bare  the  necessary  assumptions,  the  primary  and 
universal  relations,  which  are  acknowledged  and  acted  upon  in  all  observation, 
in  all  science,  and  in  all  faith.  It  returns  again  from  the  course  of  its  speculative 
criticism,  to  confide  a  second  time  in  this  knowledge  and  the  faith  which  it  could 
not  but  acquire  and  apply  in  its  progressive  synthesis,  and  which  it  now  has 
learned  to  vindicate  by  its  retrogressive  analysis. 

These  critical  and  speculative  processes  of  thought  are  reserved  for  but  a  few 
of  the  race  to  prosecute.  They  are,  however,  the  normal  and  the  necessary  con- 
summation of  the  completed  growth  of  the  fully  developed  man. 

The  consideration  of  the  development  and  growth  of  the  intellect  furnishes 
the  principles  by  which  to  regulate  the  culture  of  the  intellect,  and  to  arrange 
the  order  of  its  studies. 

The  studies  which  should  be  first  pursued  are  those  which  require  and  disci- 
pline the  powers  of  observation  and  acquisition,  and  which  involve  imagination 
and  memory,  in  contrast  with  those  which  demand  severe  efforts  and  trained 
habits  of  thought.  In  early  life,  objective  and  material  studies  should  have 
almost  the  exclusive  precedence.  The  capacity  of  exact  and  discriminating  per- 
ception, and  of  clear  and  retentive  memory,  should  be  developed  as  largely  as 
possible.  The  imagination,  in  all  its  forms,  should  be  directed  and  elevated — we 
do  not  say  stimulated,  because,  in  the  case  of  most  children,  its  activity  is 
never-tiring,  whether  they  be  at  study,  work  or  play. 

We  do  not  say,  cultivate  perception,  memory,  and  fancy,  to  the  exclusion  or 
repression  of  thought,  for  this  is  impossible.  These  powers,  if  exercised  by 
human  beings,  must  be  interpenetrated  by  thought.  If  wisely  cultivated  by 
etudies  properly  arranged,  they  will  necessarily  involve  discrimination,  compari- 
son, and  explanation.  To  teach  pure  observation,  or  the  mastery  of  objects  or 
>fords,  without  classification  and  interpretation,  is  to  commit  the  error  of  simple 
stupidity.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  to  stimulate  the  thought-processes  to  unnatu- 
ral ja-nd  prematurely  painful  efforts,  is  to  do  violence  to  the  laws  which  nature 
has  written  in  the  constitution  of  the  intellect.  Even  thought  and  reflection 
teach  us  that,  before  the  processes  of  thought  can  be  applied,  materials  must  bo 


§  50.          ITS  FUNCTIONS,  DEVELOPMENT,  AND  FACULTIES.  53 

gathered  in  large  abundance ;  and  to  provide  for  these,  nature  has  made  acquisi- 
tion and  memory  easy  and  spontaneous  for  childhood,  and  reasoning  and  science 
difficult  and  unnatural. 

The  study  of  language  should  be  prosecuted  in  childhood,  as  it  is,  in  fact,  in 
the  acquisition  of  the  mother-tongue.  In  the  acquisition  of  other  languages  the 
methods  by  which  the  vernacular  is  learned  should  be  followed  so  fur  as  is  possi- 
ble. Grammar,  so  far  as  it  is  required,  should  be  simple,  plain,  and  practical. 
Its  theories  should  be  kept  in  the  background,  its  terminology  and  principles 
should  be  the  reverse  of  the  abstract.  The  contrasts  and  comparisons  involved 
between  the  strange  and  the  familiar,  will  stimulate  and  guide  to  the  first  begin^ 
nings  of  reflective  grammar.  The  memory  for  words  should  be  exercised  and 
stimulated.  Choice  tales  and  poems — narrative  and  lyric, — should  be  learned  for 
recitation.  Natural  history  in  all  its  branches,  as  contrasted  with  the  sciences  of 
nature  or  scientific  physics,  should  be  pursued  with  the  objects  before  the  eye — 
flowers,  minerals,  shells,  birds,  and  beasts.  These  studies  should  all  be  mastered 
in  the  spring-time  of  life,  when  the  tastes  are  simple,  the  heart  is  fresh,  and  the 
eye  is  sharp  and  clear.  The  facts  of  history  and  geography  should  be  fixed  by 
repetition  and  stored  away  in  order. 

But  science  of  every  kind,  whether  of  language,  of  nature,  of  the  soul,  or  of 
God,  as  science,  should  not  be  prematurely  taught.  For  the  consequence  is, 
either  disgust  and  hostility  to  all  study  on  the  one  hand,  or,  on  the  other,  super- 
ficial thinking,  presumptuous  conceit,  and,  worst  of  all,  sated  curiosity. 

The  law  of  intellectual  progress  involves  effort  and  discipline  severely  imposed 
and  constantly  maintained,  but  the  effort  and  discipline  should  follow  the  gui- 
dance of  nature. 

§  50.  The  consideration  of  the  nature  and  the  de- 
velopment of  knowledge  teaches  on  what  principles 
we   may  divide  and   classify  the   powers  of  the  in-   fnteiiect* 
tellect 

In  assigning  different  faculties  to  the  intellect,  we  do  not  divide 
it  into  separable  parts  or  organs.  When  we  say  that  the  intel- 
lect has  faculties,  we  mean  only  that  the  soul,  as  the  intellect, 
acts  under  certain  conditions  in  clearly  distinguishable  operations 
which  terminate  in  definite  and  deteiminable  results  or  products. 
The  consideration  of  the  soul's  development  gives  the  conditions 
of  these  faculties.  The  consideration  of  the  logical  relations  of  the 
products  assigns  to  these  faculties  their  relative  authority  and 
importance. 

In  tracing  the  development  of  the  intellectual  powers  in  their 
succession,  we  do  not  exclude  the  co-action  of  the  other  so-called 
faculties  of  the  soul,  as  of  feeling  and  will.  Their  presence  and 
agency  have  already  been  recognized  with  sufficient  prominence. 
Nor  do  we  deny  or  overlook  the  truth,  that  the  several  powers 
of  the  intellect  act  together  in  the  earlier  stages  of  its  growth, 


54  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §50. 

and  in  all  the  periods  of  its  history  aid  and  direct  one  another. 
The  action  of  a  single  power  of  the  intellect  does  not  exclude  the 
co-action  of  the  other  powers.  On  the  o  her  hand,  it  is  to  be  re- 
membered, that  as  the  energy  of  the  whole  soul  is  so  far  limited 
that  one  psychical  state  is  preeminently  a  state  of  feeling,  another 
intellectual,  and  another  voluntary,  so,  of  the  intellectual  activi- 
ties, one  is  likely  to  be  predominantly  an  act  of  sense  rather  than 
of  memory,  and  another  an  act  of  the  imagination  rather  than  of 
intelligence. 

When  it  is  said  that  one  power,  as  defined,  is,  in  the  order  of 
time  and  growth,  developed  sooner  than  another,  it  is  not  in- 
tended that  each  lower  power  is  completely  matured  before  the 
other  and  higher  is  used  at  all,  or  that  distinctly  traced  boundary 
lines  mark  off  the  several  stages  of  the  mind's  development.  This 
would  involve  the  absurdity  of  teaching  that  the  child  perceives 
with  the  senses  for  a  long  time  before  it  begins  to  remember,  and 
that  it  remembers  and  imagines  for  another  long  period,  before  it 
generalizes  and  explains.  What  is  asserted  is,  that  sense  must 
begin  before  memory  and  thought  are  possible,  and  that,  as  a 
power,  it  is  perfected  before  thought  has  reached  its  consumma- 
tion. Conversely,  it  will  be  found  to  be  true  in  fact,  that  many 
acts  which  we  call  acts  of  sense-perception  are  largely  intermin- 
gled with  acts  of  representation  and  thought;  also  that  acts  of 
memory  recall  past  objects  under  the  laws  of  association  which 
thought  makes  possible ;  while  imagination,  in  which  thought  is 
not  largely  conspicuous,  is  scarcely  worthy  the  name. 

These  cautions  being  premised,  we  observe  that  the  powers  of 
the  intellect  are  clearly  distinguishable  by  the  order  of  their  devel- 
opment and  application,  as  manifested  in  the  character  and  rela- 
tions  of  their  products. 

The  leading  faculties  of  the  intellect  are  three :    THE  PRE- 

SENTATIVE,  OR  OBSERVING  FACULTY  ;    THE  REPRESENTATIVE,  OR 

CREATIVE  FACULTY;  THE  THINKING,  OR  THE  GENERALIZING 
FACULTY  ;  or,  more  briefly,  the  FACULTY  OF  EXPERIENCE,  the 

FACULTY  OF  REPRESENTATION,  aild  the  FACULTY  OF  INTELLI- 
GENCE. Each  of  these  has  its  place  in  the  order  of  intellectual 
growth  and  development.  Each  has  its  appropriate  products  or 
objects.  Each  acts  under  certain  conditions  or  laws.  Each  of 
these  leading  faculties  is  subdivided  into  subordinate  powers, 


§  51.  ITS  FUNCTION,  DEVELOPMENT  AND  FACULTIES.  50 

which  are  distinguishable  from  one  another  in  like  manner  with 
their  primaries. 

§  51.  I.  The  presentative  faculty,  or  the  faculty  of 
acquisition  and  experience,  is  subdivided  into  sense- 
perception  and  consciousness ;  or,  as  they  are  some-  Se 
times  called,  the  outer  and  the  inner  sense. 

In  the  order  of  the  mind's  development  these  are  exercised 
first  and  earliest  of  all.  The  intellect  begins  its  activity  with 
observing  objects  of  sense.  Closely  connected  with  this  is  the 
consciousness  of  the  soul's  inner  experiences,  prominent  among 
which  are  its  sensations  of  pleasure  and  pain.  Not  only  does  this 
order  actually  occur,  but  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  conceive  of 
any  other  as  possible.  The  mind  must  observe  before  it  re- 
members; unless  it  had  previously  observed  and  acquired,  it 
would  have  nothing  to  remember  or  imagine. 

The  objects  or  products  with  which  this  power  is  concerned,  or 
which  it  evolves,  are  individual  objects.  In  this  respect  they  are 
distinguished  from  the  objects  of  thought,  which  are  always 
general.  But  this  feature  they  share  with  those  of  memory  and 
imagination,  which  are  also  individual.  From  these  last  they 
are  still  further  distinguished  by  being  presented  for  the  first 
time ;  hence  the  epithet  presentative  is  applied  to  the  faculty  by 
which  they  are  known.  This  feature  is  made  still  more  precise 
by  their  individual  relations  in  space  and  in  time.  The  objects 
of  sense  are  known  in  space,  as  being  here,  and  the  objects  of  con- 
sciousness are  known  as  now  in  time.  These  two  relations  they 
share  with  the  objects  of  no  other  power.  They  are  also 
mutually  related  to  one  another,  the  one  being  an  individualized 
non-ego,  the  other  being  a  determinate  state  of  the  ego. 

The  conditions  of  the  acts  of  sense-knowledge  are  the  existence 
of  the  living  body  in  connection  with  a  sentient  spirit,  and  the 
excitement  of  the  same  by  material  agents.  Some  of  these 
are  bodily,  some  are  psychical.  Some  of  these  are  known  to 
physiology,  others  are  wholly  unknown,  but  so  far  as  they  are 
knowable,  they  are  appropriately  considered  in  explaining  the 
power  of  sense-knowledge. 

rfhe  condition  which  furnishes  or  constitutes  the  object  for  the 
act  of  consciousness,  is  that  the  soul  should  in  fact  act  or  suffer 
in  a  present  and  individual  state.  x  Consciousness  takes  heed  of 


56  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  52. 

the  fact,  i.  e.,  of  the  operation,  and  cognizes  that  it  is.  Whence 
or  how  it  is  that  the  soul  furnishes  this  material,  or  how  the  soul 
is  able  to  act  in  these  varied  forms,  it  can  do  little  to  explain. 
These  operations  lie  out  of  the  range  of  consciousness  ;  they  are 
presupposed  by  it. 

But  these  objective  conditions  are  not  alone.  There  are  also 
subjective  conditions  of  the  preseiitative  power  in  both  conscious- 
ness and  perception.  Let  the  external  world  and  the  quick  sen- 
sibility both  conjoin  to  furnish  ample  material  through  eye  and 
ear  ;  let  the  active  and  eager  soul  exercise  the  most  varied  forms 
of  act  or  affection ;  if  the  perceiving  or  conscious  spirit  does  not 
attend,  it  will  fail  to  notice,  and  of  course  will  fail  to  know. 

§    52.    II.    Next  to   the    presentative   comes   the 
eentative    fa-  faculty  of   representation.      That  this  is   developed 
second  in  order  of  growth  and  of  time  to  the  soul's 
power  to  acquire  and  observe,  is  obvious. 

The  objects  or  products  of  this  power  are  individual  objects 
like  the  objects  of  sense  and  of  consciousness.  They  differ  from 
them  in  this,  that  they  are  representative  of  them.  They  are 
therefore  not  real,  but  mental  objects.  They  are  wrought  or 
created  by  the  mind  itself,  but  always  with  respect  to  some  real 
object  actually  experienced.  This  is  their  common  characteristic, 
that  they  represent  observed  and  experienced  objects.  They  are 
representative ;  i.  e.,  they  present  a  second  time,  and  so  take  the 
place  of  objects  previously  known. 

In  representing  these  objects,  the  mind  acts  in  two  ways— as 
the  memory ;  and  as  the  imagination  or  phantasy  :  and  hence  the 
representative  power  is  divided  into  these  two.  In  memory  it 
knows  that  the  mental  object  represents  an  object  previously 
known.  In  imagination  it  changes  the  representative  objec^ 
into  another,  such  &s  it  has  never  actually  experienced.  Ac- 
cording as  it  changes  the  object  in  more  or  fewer  particulars 
and  with  special  applications,  does  the  imagination  receive  dil 
ferent  names. 

The  conditions  of  the  representing  power  are,  that  the  soui 
should  retain  and  reproduce  past  objects  for  the  memory  to  re- 
cognize and  the  imagination  to  modify.  If  the  soul  refuses  to 
furnish  these  appropriate  objects,  neither  the  memory  nor  the 
imagination  can  know  their  objects.  For  this  reason,  the  powei 


§  53.  ITS  FUNCTION,  DEVELOPMENT,  AND  FACULTIES.  57 

of  the  soul  to  retain  and  recall  is  essential  to  the  power  to  know 
these  mental  objects  when  represented.  Concerning  the  actings 
of  the  capacity  of  the  soul  to  retain  and  reproduce  we  know  little 
directly,  but  indirectly  we  know  very  much  :  that  is,  we  know 
how  we  can  affect  its  actings  by  our  own  conscious  energies  in 
acquiring.  The  relations  and  laws  by  which  acquired  objects 
can  be  reproduced  are  more  obvious  and  better  established  than 
almost  any  other  psychological  truths.  These  are  all  compre- 
hended under  the  familiar  title  of  the  association  of  ideas,  and 
they  very  properly  enter  largely  into  the  consideration  of  the  re- 
presentative power. 

§  53.  III.  The  power  of  thought  is  developed  last 
of 'all  in  the  order  of  the  soul's  evolution  or  growth. 
It  is  also  called  the  intelligence,  and  the  rational 
faculty. 

This  power  requires  for  its  possible  exercise  some  range  of  ob- 
servation, some  acquisitions  of  memory,  and  some  creative  activ- 
ity of  imagination.  For  its  effective  energy  and  its  actual  appli- 
cation it  must  be  preceded  by  many  separate  exercises  of  all  these 
functions.  To  the  thorough  and  persistent  use  and  the  complete 
development  of  this  power,  the  soul  is  most  of  all  disinclined;  and 
therefore  it  is  perfected  and  developed  later  in  the  order  of  time. 

But  though  this  power  is  last  and  reluctantly  developed,  it  sur- 
passes all  the  others  in  dignity  and  importance.  It  explains 
facts  and  events  by  powers  and  laws.  It  enforces  conclusions  by 
premises.  It  accounts  for  inferences  by  data.  It  lift?  observa- 
tion up  to  the  dignity  of  science,  and  establishes  it  on  the  firm 
foundation  of  principles.  It  enables  us  to  interpret  the  past 
and  to  predict  the  future. 

The  products  or  objects  of  this  power  are  always  generalized 
objects.  They  are  universals,  as  contrasted  with  individuals. 
This  difference  distinguishes  this  power  of  the  intellect  widely 
from  the  two  others.  These  products  are  known  by  various 
names,  as  the  concept,  the  class,  the  judgment,  the  argument,  the 
induction,  the  interpretation,  and  the  system. 

In  accordance  with  these  distinguishable  products,  the  intellect 
is  said  to  perform  all  the  acts  which  require  the  several  powers 
or  faculties  of  generalizing,  classifying,  judging,  reasoning,  infer- 
ring, explaining,  and  methodizing  the  individual  objects  given  by 


58  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  53. 

experience.  Hence  the  intellect  is  sometimes  said  to  be  endowed 
with  as  many  subordinate  faculties. 

The  most  obvious  aid  or  instrument  provided  by  Nature  for 
furthering  these  processes  and  retaining  their  products,  is  lan- 
guage. For  this  reason  the  existence  of  language  is  regarded  as 
a  necessary  result  of  the  power  of  thought,  and  the  use  of 
language  is  regarded  as  the  indication  of  its  presence  and 
exercise. 

The  conditions  of  thought,  as  distinguished  from  the  materials 
or  occasions  of  thought  which  experience  furnishes,  are  certain 
relations  discerned  and  generalized  by  the  power  of  thought 
itself.  The  reality  of  these  relations  is  an  assumed  condition  of 
these  peculiar  operations ;  and  when  the  mind  comes  to  appre- 
hend them,  it  must '  proceed  upon  the  belief  that  they  are  uni- 
versally present  and  incontestably  valid.  In  this  sense  the  rnind 
itself  prepares  for  itself  these  objects  of  its  own  apprehension. 
For  the  service  of  thought,  all  individual  objects  must  be  be- 
lieved to  be  connected  or  bound  together  under  universal  and  ne- 
cessary relations  or  categories.  Such  are  the  relations  of  sub- 
stance and  attribute,  cause  and  effect,  means  and  end.  Thus  the 
relation  of  substance  and  attribute  is  assumed  as  real  in  order  to 
the  possibility  and  truth  of  the  acts  of  generalizing  and  of  judg- 
ment. The  relation  of  cause  and  effect  must  be  presupposed  to 
give  meaning  and  force  to  acts  of  reasoning  and  explanation. 
The  relations  of  design  are  the  prefatory  conditions  of  acts  of  in- 
duction. But  universal  or  generalized  objects  presuppose  the  ex- 
istence of  individual  concepts  and  their  relations.  To  individual 
beings  and  events,  space  and  time  relations  are  presupposed. 
Therefore,  in  order  to  the  products  of  thought,  the  intuitions  of 
space  and  time  are  presupposed.  These  relations  are  said  to  be  a 
priori,  for  the  reason  that  they  are  presupposed  in  these  processes. 
They  are  called  intuitions,  categories,  primitive  cognitions,  etc.,  etc. 
They  are  said  to  be  universal,  because  applicable  to  every  indi- 
vidual object  in  the  way  explained.  They  are  necessary  notions, 
because  they  are  necessarily  applied  by  the  mind  in  all  its 
thought-activities,  and  to  all  thought-objects. 

They  are,  however,  no  more  necesary  to  thought  than  they 
are  to  presentation  and  representation.  We  imply  and  suppose 
them  as  truly,  though  not  as  conspicuously,  in  perception  and 


§  53.          ITS  FUNCTION,  DEVELOPMENT,  AND  FACULTIES.  59 

consciousness,  in  memory  and  imagination^  as  we  do  in  classifica- 
tion and  reasoning. 

But  it  is  by  means  of  thought  that  we  discern  and  define 
these  categories.  It  is  only  as  we  use  thought-processes  critically 
• — i.  e.,  as  we  generalize  and  analyze  our  own  mental  processes — 
that  we  discover  these  relations  as  everywhere  and  necessarily 
present.  Though  they  are  actually  present  as  the  conditions 
and  elements  of  all  our  knowing,  it  is  only  by  thought  that  we 
discover  and  demonstrate  their  presence  and  their  application,  as 
the  conditions  of  all  knowledge. 

In  view  of  the  two  methods  in  which  the  thought 
power  is  employed,  the  power  itself  has  been  sub-  JJms  rfSoSght! 
divided  by  many  writers  into  two:  the  elabora- 
tive  faculty,  as  performing  the  processes,  and  the  regulative,  as 
furnishiog  the  rules — or  more  properly  as  prescribing  the  sphere 
and  possibility — of  thought.     These  are  named  also  the  dianoetic 
and  the  noetio  faculty.     By  some  writers  they  are  distinguished 
as  the  understanding  and  reason,  in  a  usage  suggested  by  Kant, 
but  deviating  materially  from  his  own.     Milton  and  others  call 
them  the  discursive  and  intuitive  reason. 

We  prefer  to  say  that  the  analysis  of  the  thinking  power 
involves  two  heads  of  inquiry : 

(1.)  What  are  the  several  processes  of  thought  of  which  the 
intellect  is  capable  in  the  order  of  their  development,  the  man- 
ner of  their  action,  their  conditions,  and  their  products  ?  So  far 
as  psychology  prosecutes  these  inquiries,  it  considers  them  sub- 
jectively as  processes  of  the  soul.  When  we  go  further,  and 
proceed  to  define  their  products  as  expressed  in  language,  to 
derive  rules  to  direct  the  knowing  processes  or  to  test  what  is 
known,  psychology  passes  over  into  the  service  of  logic. 

(2.)  What  are  the  ultimate  relations  or  •  'ategories  which 
thought  brings  to  light,  and,  which,  all  knowledge  presupposes  ? 
What  is  their  authority  and  trustworthiness  ?  What  is  their  re- 
lation to  special  acts  of  knowledge?  What  application  can  be 
made  of  them  to  the  discovery  of  truth  and  the  detection 
of  error?  Last  of  all,  how  can  they  be  applied  to  vindicate 
man's  confidence  in  his  own  knowledge,  and  in  his  very  power 
to  know  ? 

All  these  questions  when  prosecuted  with  reference  to  the  sub- 


60  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  53. 

jective  power  of  the  soul  to  evolve  and  apply  these  intuitions, 
belong  legitimately  and  necessarily  to  psychology. 

So  far  as  the  intuitions  themselves,  objectively  considered,  are 
made  the  subjects  of  analysis  and  discussion;  so  far  as  their 
relations  to  one  another,  and  the  structure  of  human  knowledge, 
are  examined :  so  far,  in  short,  as  they  are  made  the  subject 
of  critical  or  speculative  discussion,  they  lead  us  within  the  field 
of  metaphysics,  ontology,  or  speculative  philosophy,  for  which,  as 
has  been  already  explained,  psychology  is  the  direct  and  neces- 
sary preparation. 

We  divide  therefore,  our  treatise  into  FOUR  parts,  with  the 
following  titles :  I.  PRESENTATION  ;  II.  EEPRESENTATION  ;  III. 
THOUGHT  ;  IV.  INTUITION  ;  the  last  two  being  devoted  to 
Thought  proper  and  Thought  critically  applied  to  the  analysis 
of  knowledge  and  the  discovery  of  the  categories  or  ultimate  rela- 
tions which  are  the  conditions  of  its  processes  and  products. 
For  the  explanation  and  justification  of  this  division  we  must 
refer  to  the  foregoing  remarks,  and  the  subsequent  treatment 
of  the  topics  themselves. 


THE  HUMAN  INTELLECT. 


PART  FIRST. 

PRESENTATION  AND   PRESENTATIVE   KNOWLEDGE 

CHAPTER  I. 

CONSCIOUSNESS — NATURAL   CONSCIOUSNESS. 

§  54.  WE  begin  with  PRESENTATIVE  KNOWLEDGE.  Consciousne8( 
Of  objects  presented  to  the  moid  there  are  two  classes ;  Jjjjj,116^  JjJ4* 
objects  of  matter,  and  objects  of  spirit.  Corresponding 
to  these  two  classes  of  objects,  two  powers  or  faculties  are  distin- 
guished, viz.,  CONSCIOUSNESS  and  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  We  shall 
first  treat  of  consciousness.  It  is  briefly  defined  as  the  power  by 
which  the  soul  knows  its  own  acts  and  states.  The  soul  is  aware 
of  the  fleeting  and  transitory  acts  which  it  performs ;  as  when  it 
perceives,  remembers,  feels,  and  decides.  It  also  knows  its  own 
states  ;  as  when  it  is  conscious  of  a  continued  condition  of  intellec- 
tual activity,  a  gay  or  melancholy  mood  of  feeling,  or  a  fixed  and 
enduring  preference.  Whether  the  state  is  in  such  cases  in  fact 
prolonged,  or  only  repeated  by  successive  renewals,  we  need  not 
here  inquire ;  it  is  sufficient  that  states  of  the  soul  are  distin- 
guished from  acts  by  their  seeming  continuance. 

Again,  the  terms  conscious  and  consciousness  are  often  applied 
to  any  act  whatever  of  direct  cognition,  whether  its  object  be  in- 
ternal or  external.  In  other  words,  they  are  used  as  equivalent 
to  knowing,  perceiving,  etc.,  or  to  knowledge  in  any  form. 
Thus  we  say,  '  I  was  not  conscious  that  you  were  in  the  room  ;' 
or,  '  I  was  not  conscious  that  he  was  speaking ;'  as  well  as,  '  I  was 
not  conscious  of  being  angry.'  In  cases  like  these  the  terms 
designate  an  act  of  simple  perception  and  knowledge.  The  rea' 

61 


62  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  54. 

son  why  they  come  to  do  so  is,  that  every  act  of  knowledge,  what- 
ever be  its  nature  or  object,  is  attended  by  consciousness.  The 
phrase,  '  I  was  not  conscious  that  you  were  in  the  room,5  is  ex- 
plained as  meaning,  *  I  was  not  conscious  of  seeing  you  in  the 
room/ 

Consciousness  is  also  employed  as  a  collective  term  for  all  the 
psychical  states.  In  the  words  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  "  it  is  a 
comprehensive  term  for  the  complement  of  our  cognitive  ener- 
gies." Every  such  state  or  energy  is  attended  by  consciousness  ; 
it  is  an  act  or  state  of  which  we  are  conscious,  or,  as  we  some- 
times say,  it  is  a  conscious  act  or  state.  The  sum-total  of  all 
such  acts  is  therefore  expressively  described  as  the  consciousness 
of  an  individual.  It  is  equally  true  that  we  are  conscious  of  our 
states  of  feeling,  and  these  may  also  be  designated  by  the  same 
general  and  comprehensive  term,  though  with  somewhat  less  pro- 
priety. 

Consciousness  is  often  figuratively  described  as  the  '  witness '  of 
the  states  of  the  soul,  as  though  it  were  an  observer  separate  from 
the  soul  itself,  inspecting  and  beholding  its  processes.  It  is  called 
the  'inner  light/  'an  inner  illumination/  as  though  a  sudden  flash 
or  steady  radiance  could  be  thrown  within  the  spirit,  revealing 
objects  that  would  otherwise  be  indistinct,  or  causing  those  to 
appear  which  would  otherwise  not  be  seen  at  all.  Appellations 
like  these  are  so  obviously  figurative,  that  it  is  surprising  that- 
any  philosopher  should  use  them  for  scientific  purposes,  or  should 
reason  upon,  or  apply  them  with  scientific  rigor. 

The  terms  conscious  and  cor^sciousness  explain  their  own 
meaning,  and  confirm  the  truth  of  the  assumption  and  belief 
that  the  fact  is  true  which  this  language  implies.  They  de- 
scribe a  knowing  with,  or  within  the  knowing  agent,  and  they 
imply  that  the  states  of  the  human  soul  may  be  known  by  the 
soul  to  which  they  pertain. 

The  power  of  the  soul  thus  to  know  itself  is  often  called  the 
internal,  or  the  inner  sense.  This  term  is  suggested  by  analogy. 
As  the  soul,  by  the  external  sense  or  senses,  apprehends  the  pro- 
perties and  qualities  of  matter,  so  it  is  said  to  know  its  own 
states  and  powers  by  another,  i.  e.y  an  inner  sense. 

Consciousness  has  also,  for  the  same  reason,  been  called  by 
many  philosophers,  as  Leibnitz,  ad-  or  ap-perception,  by  which 


§  55.  CONSCIOUSNESS.  63 

term  the  same  fact  is  recognized  that  the  word  consciousness  im- 
plies, viz.,  a  perception  of  the  mind's  own  activities,  in  addition 
to  the  perception  of  the  objects  of  those  activities. 

The  term  Bewusstseyn,  and  its  cognates  in  the  Teutonic  languages,  recognizes 
the  distinct — rather  than  the  accomp^'/ing — knowledge  which  consciousness 
always  involves.  It  describes  a  be-,  rr  o^r  than  a  con-knowing;  i.  e.,  the  clear 
and  completed  knowledge  which  the  mind  usually  attains  by  a  second  and  more 
attentive  look.  Hence  it  is  with  eminent  propriety  applied  to  that  knowledge 
which  the  soul  has  of  its  inner  states,  as  this,  to  be  of  any  service,  must  be 
earnest  and  attentive.  The  word  in  German,  however,  is  riot  so  closely  limited 
to  this  internal  knowledge,  as  is  consciousness,  in  English.  It  is  supplemented 
by  self-consciousness — Selbet-bewusstaeyn.  Hence  sometimes,  when  we  should  use 
consciousness  only,  the  Germans  would  say  self-consciousness.  Their  more 
usual  technical  appellation  for  the  power  is  the  inner  or  internal  sense. 

Reflection  is  the  appellation  used  by  Locke  for  this  power  ;  or, 
more  exactly,  it  is  under  this  appellation  that  he  discusses  its 
nature  and  authority.  Hence,  among  many  English  writers  re- 
flection is  freely  used  as  the  exact  equivalent  of  consciousness. 
It  is  the  great  and  distinctive  merit  of  Locke  to  have  called  at- 
tention to  this  as  a  separate  source  of  knowledge,  and  to  have 
claimed  for  the  knowledge  which  it  furnishes  equal  authority  and 
certainty  with  that  which  is  received  through  the  senses.  We 
quote  a  passage  memorable  in  the  history  of  psychology. 

*'  The  other  fountain  from  which  experience  furnisheth  the  understanding  with 
ideas,  is  the  perception  of  the  operations  of  our  own  minds  within  us,  as  it  is 
employed  about  the  ideas  which  it  has  got ;  which  operations,  when  the  soul 
comes  to  reflect  on  and  consider,  do  furnish  the  understanding  with  another  set 
of  ideas,  which  could  not  be  had  from  things  without ;  and  such  are  perception , 
thinking,  doubting,  believing,  reasoning,  knowing,  willing,  and  all  the  different 
actings  of  our  own  minds;  which  we,  being  conscious  of,  and  observing  in  our- 
selves, do  from  these  receive  into  our  understandings  as  distinct  ideas  as  we  do 
from  bodies  affecting  our  senses.  This  source  of  ideas  every  man  has  wholly  in 
himself;  and  though  it  be  not  sense,  as  having  nothing  to  do  with  external  ob- 
jects, yet  it  is  very  like  it,  and  might  properly  enough  be  called  internal  sense. 
But  as  I  call  the  other,  sensation,  so  I  call  this  reflection,  the  ideas  it  affords 
being  such  only  as  the  mind  gets  by  reflecting  on  its  own  operations  within 
itself." — Essay,  Book  ii.  chap.  i.  $  4. 

§  55.  Consciousness  is  exercised  in  two  forms,  or 
species  of  activity,  viz.,   the  natural  or  spontaneous   ^usdm™**1 
and  the  artificial  or  reflective.     They  are  also  called 
by  some  writers  the  primary  and  the  secondary  consciousness.     The 
one  form  is  employed  by  all  men ;  the  other  is  attained  by  few. 


64  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §56. 

The  first  is  a  gift  of  nature  and  the  product  of  spontaneous 
growth ;  the  second  is  an  accomplishment  of  art  and  the  reward  of 
special  discipline.  The  natural  precedes  the  reflective  iu  the  order 
of  time  and  of  actual  development.  But  it  does  not  differ  from 
it  in  kind,  only  in  an  accidental  element,  which  brings  its  results 
within  our  reach  and  retains  them  for  our  service.  This  is  the 
general  conception  which  we  form  of  both,  as  preliminary  to  the 
special  consideration  of  each. 

The  capacity  to  attend  to  the  psychical  states  in  the  lowest 
appreciable  degree — i.  e.,  with  that  energy  which  leaves  any  per- 
manent product  or  result  for  the  memory  or  imagination — is 
matured  by  the  slow  education  of  infancy  and  childhood  (§  64) 
During  this  period,  even  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances, 
the  growth  and  development  of  consciousness  is  steady,  but  slow. 

Where  consciousness  is  energized  by  attention,  and  applied  to 
psychical  phenomena  for  scientific  purposes  in  the  interest  of 
psychological  science,  it  is  called  the  secondary,  the  artificial, 
the  philosophical  or  reflective  consciousness,  or  simply,  reflection. 
As  such,  it  is  distinguished  from  and  contrasted  with  the  primary 
the  natural,  the  common,  the  unreflecting  consciousness,  or 
•simply,  consciousness.  The  division  indicated  by  these  con- 
trasted terms  is  convenient  and  important.  It  should  always  be 
remembered,  however,  that  the  two  so-called  species  of  conscious- 
ness do  not  differ  from  one  another  in  kind,  but  in  degree,  and 
that  there  is  no  well-defined  and  sharp  line  of  distinction  that 
divides  off  the  one  from  the  other. 

§  56.  We  notice  first  the  natural,  or  primary  con- 

Natural  con-  .  y 

sciousncss  as  sciousness.  JN  atural  consciousness  is  the  power  which 
the  mind  naturally  and  necessarily  possesses  of  know- 
ing its  own  acts  and  states.  It  may  be  further  described  by 
considering  it  in  its  operation  and  its  objects,  or  as  consciousness 
the  act,  and  consciousness  the  object. 

We  begin  with  consciousness  the  act.  As  an  act,  it  is  a  neces- 
sary and  essential  constituent  of  many  active  conditions  of  the 
eoul.  The  soul  cannot  know,  without  knowing  that  it  knows. 
It  cannot  feel,  without  knowing  that  it  feels ;  nor  can  it  desire, 
will,  and  act,  without  knowing  that  it  desires,  wills,  and  acts. 

Consciousness  is  an  act  of  knowledge,  and  is  therefore  an  act 
purely  and  simply  intellectual.  The  states  observed  may  be 


§  56.  CONSCIOUSNESS.  65 

psychical,  in  any  form,  i.  e.,  states  of  intellect,  sensibility,  or  will 
— but  the  act  by  which  they  are  known  is  intellectual  only.  It 
is  an  act  of  direct  or  intuitive  knowledge.  To  attain  it,  neither 
memory  nor  reasoning  are  required,  nor  any  indirect  process  or 
succession  of  acts,  but  the  soul  immediately  knows  its  present 
condition  or  act.  It  confronts  it  face  to  face.  It  knows  it  as 
now  existing.  It  is  eminently  presentative  knowledge. 

Consciousness,  as  an  act  of  knowledge,  is  matured  into,  or 
results  in  a  peculiar  product.  When  it  is  complete,  it  furnishes 
for  the  mind's  recall  an  idea  of  the  object  known.  This  is  a 
purely  intellectual  result.  What  the  mind  is  conscious  of  may 
be  a  state  of  knowledge,  feeling,  or  choice,  but  the  feeling  and 
choice  which  we  reproduce  in  memory  is  not  a  feeling  or  choice, 
but  our  idea  or  image  of  a  feeling  or  choice,  and  this  is  purely 
intellectual.  As  an  act  of  knowledge,  it  involves  the  discern- 
ment of  relations  (§  45 ).  We  know  the  state  to  be  our  own ; 
i.  e.,  we  discern  its  relation  to  the  ego.  We  know  that  the 
present  is  not  the  past  state  of  the  soul ;  i.  e.,  we  know  the  two 
under  the  relations  of  contrast  and  of  time.  Again,  the  know- 
ing agent  distinguishes  itself  as  the  conscious  observer  from  itself 
and  its  own  states  as  the  object  observed.  Like  every  act  of 
knowledge  it  is  at  once  an  act  of  analytic  separation  and  synthe- 
tic union. 

The  act  of  consciousness  is  a  peculiar  intellectual  act — an  act 
that  is  preeminently  sui  generis.  Especially  is  it  peculiar  in  the 
conditions  of  its  exercise.  To  most  of  the  other  acts  of  know- 
ledge it  is  required  that  their  objects  should  exist  before  they  are 
known.  But  in  this  peculiar  process  the  object  and  act  are 
blended  in  one.  Thus,  the  landscape  on  which  I  gaze  is  a  per- 
manent object,  to  which  I  can  bring  and  from  which  I  can  with- 
draw my  mind.  The  thought  or  feeling  which  I  remember  must 
have  been  experienced  in  order  that  it  may  be  known  a  second 
time.  It  is  rashly  concluded  by  many  that  this  is  a  necessary 
and  universal  condition  of  all  knowledge.  What  is  as- 
serted of  consciousness  violates,  as  is  objected,  the  first  and 
essential  requirement,  that  something  should  have  existed,  in 
order  to  be  known.  '  How  can  I  know  that  I  know,'  it  is  urged, 
'  unless  I  have  first  known,  in  order  to  furnish  an  object  for  me 
to  know  ?'  Or  it  is  concluded  that  consciousness  is,  at  best,  but  a 


66  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  57. 

kind  of  memory,  an  act  that  immediately  follows  the  act  or  state 
of  which  we  are  said  to  be  conscious.  "  No  one,"  says  Herbert 
Spencer,  "  is  conscious  of  what  he  is,  but  of  what  he  was  a 
moment  before.  That  which  thinks,  can  never  be  the  object  of 
direct  contemplation ;  seeing  that,  to  be  this,  it  must  become  that 
which  is  thought  of,  not  that  which  thinks.  It  is  impossible  to 
be  at  the  same  time  that  which  regards  and  that  which  is  re- 
garded." (Principles  of  Psychology,  Part  i.  chap,  i.)  Tho 
force  of  this  objection  lies  in  the  assumption,  that  every  thing 
which  is  known  must  have  already  existed.  But  this  assumption 
is  unauthorized.  It  is  founded  on  a  supposed  analogy  between 
this  and  other  acts  of  knowledge.  It  by  no  means  follows, 
because  the  landscape  must  have  existed  before  we  see  it,  or  the 
mental  state  must  have  occurred  before  we  remember  it,  that  a 
perception  or  feeling  must  be  past  before  we  can  be  conscious  of 
it.  Besides,  how  can  one  remember  that  which  he  did  not  know 
at  the  time  when  it  occurred  ?  How  can  one  recall  the  state  in 
which  he  was  a  moment  before,  and  know  that  he  had  been  in 
that  state,  if  he  was  not  conscious  of  it  at  the  precise  instant  in 
which  it  occurred  i  Those  that  resolve  acts  of  consciousness  into 
acts  of  memory,  make  an  act  of  memory  itself  impossible. 
The  remembering  act  necessarily  follows  the  act  which  is  re- 
membered however  closely.  We  cannot  recall  the  act  itself,  nor 
that  it  was  our  own  act,  unless  we  knew  both,  when  the  act 
occurred. 

§  57.  From  the  consideration  of  consciousness  the 
Consciousness    act  we  pass  to  consciousness  the  object.     The  object 

the  object.  * 

of  consciousness  has  already  been  defined  to  be  an 
act  or  state  of  the  soul ;  more  exactly,  the  soul  acting  and  suf- 
fering in  an  individual  state.  That  such  an  object  should  be 
peculiar  and  unlike  any  other,  we  are  prepared  to  believe,  by 
what  we  have  already  noticed  under  consciousness  as  an  act. 
Other  peculiarities  will  reveal  themselves  to  a  closer  inspection. 
We  observe,  in  general,  that  objects  of  consciousness  are 
unlike  the  phenomena  of  matter  in  this,  that  they  are  given  to 
observation  as  essentially  complex  even  in  their  greatest  simplicity. 
Every  state  or  condition  of  the  spirit  in  actual  experience  and  as 
known  by  the  soul,  is  complex,  even  in  its  extremest  simplicity. 
The  object  is  threefold  in  its  elements,  every  one  of  which  must 


§  58.  CONSCIOUSNESS.  67 

be  recognized  by  the  conscious  spirit.  The  elements  are,  the 
identical  ego,  either  agent  or  patient  according  as  the  case  may 
be ;  the  object  with  respect  to  which  it  acts  or  suffers ;  and  the  pre- 
sent state  or  action  in  which  it  exists  or  acts.  Every  psychical  state 
of  which  we  are  conscious  implies  an  acting  or  existing  ego,  to 
which  the  state  pertains.  A  condition  of  the  soul  without  an  in- 
dividual person  acting  or  feeling,  is  impossible  as  a  conception, 
and  is  never  experienced  as  a  fact.  Again,  this  ego  is  known  to 
be  in  a  definite  form  or  condition  of  action  or  suffering.  The 
states  are  transient,  the  agent  remains.  The  states  are  as  fleeting 
and  as  transitory  as  the  flying  moments ;  indeed,  they  come  and 
go  more  swiftly  than  any  instants  which  we  can  count ;  the  indi- 
vidual self  remains  unchanged,  referring  all  these  changes  to 
itself.  Again,  the  ego,  in  its  acting  and  suffering,  is  concerned 
with  some  object.  It  must  have  some  object  to  be  employed 
upon,  either  material  or  mental.  One  state  is  as  often  distin- 
guished from  another  by  its  object,  as  by  any  thing  besides. 
These  are  the  elements  which  make  up  that  complex  whole  which 
we  call  the  object  of  consciousness. 

§  58.  It  is  a  natural  question,  What  is  the  relation 
of  consciousness  to  each  of  these  essential  constituents, 
either  as  combined  together  in  a  general  view,  or  as  each  element^ S  a 
calls  forth  special  and  separate  attention?     To  this  Jg^ical 
question  we  give  this  general   preliminary  answer: 
The  soul,  in  consciousness,  is  directly  cognizant  of  all  these  ele- 
ments, as  entering  into  every  one  of  its  states.     It  knows  them  aa 
distinguishable  from  one  another,  and  yet  as,  in  their  union,  con* 
stituting  a  single  whole. 

Here  we  observe  that,  in  an  act  of  direct  or  intuitive  knowledge 
like  consciousness,  it  is  as  essential  that  the  connecting  relationa 
should  be  apprehended,  as  the  parts  whiah  they  bind  or  connect. 
In  logical  analysis,  the  parts  are  considered  separately,  and  te 
each  we  assign  a  separate  word  or  phrase ;  but  in  the  synthesis  of 
real  knowledge  the  parts  are  viewed  together.  The  verbal  ex- 
pression of  a  mental  state  is  not  a  single  word,  as  I,  perceive  [or] 
love,  this  apple,  each  apprehended  apart,  and  then  somehow  aggre- 
gated into  a  phrase  or  proposition  ;  but  it  is  a  finished  propos* 
tion,  in  all  its  parts  and  relations,  as,  I  perceive  [or  love] 
this  apple  In  other  words,  we  can  analyze  or  separate  only 


68  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §§  59,  60. 

what  is  given  as  united  in  the  concrete  or  real.  If  the  parts  and 
connecting  relations  are  not  discerned  together  by  an  intuitive 
act,  they  can  neither  be  separated  nor  united  by  any  other  act  or 
process.  The  objects  known  by  consciousness  are  intuitively 
known.  All  the  materials  which  mediate  or  abstract  knowledge 
evolves  from  these  objects,  the  objects  must  be  known  already  to 
involve. 

But  though  these  elements  are  always  recognized  in  every 
object  of  which  we  are  conscious — i.  e.}  in  every  conscious  mental 
state — they  are  not  regarded  with  equal  attention.  According  as 
one  or  other  of  these  elements  receives  the  chief  attention  and  is 
most  absorbing,  so  is  each  state  of  consciousness  definitely  and 
peculiarly  marked.  We  will  consider  the  predominance  of  each 
of  these  elements  singly  and  apart. 

§  59.  First  let  the  souFs  own  activity  be  the  special 

The  activity       ,?.-..  .  ,  ,.     ' 

may  be  chiefly  object  01  its  OWE.  COUSCIOUS  observation. 

The  states  come  and  go,  they  rise  and  fall,  they  are 
varying  and  restless  as  the  waves  of  the  ocean,  each  pushing 
forward  the  one  that  went  before.  Moreover,  these  states  are 
the  products  of  the  soul's  own  energy,  or  the  sufferings  or  joyful 
experiences  of  its  own  sensibility.  What  can  it  be  conscious  of, 
if  it  knows  not  these  ?  For  these  reasons  no  one  has  ever  doubted 
that  the  operation  or  state  of  the  soul  is  the  appropriate  object 
of  consciousness — is  the  central  element,  the  element  par  eminence, 
if  the  object  is  believed  to  be  complex ;  the  sole  object,  if  the  ob- 
ject is  conceded  to  be  simple. 

§  60.  Second.  Of  the  ego  itself  we  are  also  di- 
Consciousness  rectly  conscious,  jSot  only  are  we  conscious  of  the 

of  the  ego.  • 

varying  states  and  conditions,  but  we  know  them  to 
be  our  own  states ;  i.  e.,  each  individual  observer  knows  his 
changing  individual  states  to  belong  to  his  individual  self,  or  to 
himself,  the  individual.  The  states  we  know  as  varying  and 
transitory.  The  self  we  know  as  unchanged  and  permanent. 

It  is  of  the  very  nature  and  essence  of  a  psychical  state  to  be 
the  act  or  experience  of  an  individual  ego.  We  are  not  first  con- 
scious of  the  state  or  operation,  and  then  forced  to  look  around 
for  a  something  to  which  it  is  to  be  referred,  or  to  which  it  may 
belong.  A  mental  state  which  is  not  produced  or  felt  by  an  indi- 
vidual self,  is  as  inconceivable  as  a  triangle  without  three  angles. 


§  60.  CONSCIOUSNESS.  69 

or  a  square  without  four  sides.     This  relation  of  the  act  to  the 
self  is  not  inferred,  but  is  directly  known. 

The  fact  of  memory  proves  this  beyond  dispute.  In  every  act 
of  memory  we  know  or  believe  that  the  object  now  recalled  was 
formerly  before  the  mind ;  in  other  words,  I,  the  person  remember- 
ing, did  previously  know  or  experience  that  which  I  now  recall. 
But  how  could  this  be  possible,  if  the  first  act  or  state  was  not 
known,  when  it  occurred,  to  belong  to  the  same  ego  which  now 
recalls  it?  This  truth  has  been  extensively  overlooked  or  denied. 
Thus  Hume  says :  "  For  my  part,  when  I  enter  most  intimately 
into  what  I  call  myself  I  ahvays  stumble  on  some  particular  per- 
ception or  other,  of  heat  or  cold,  light  or  shade,  love  or  hatred, 
pain  or  pleasure.  I  can  never  catch  myself  at  any  time  without 
a  perception,  and  never  can  observe  anything  but  the  percep- 
tion." "  If  any  one,  upon  serious  and  unprejudiced  reflection, 
thinks  he  has  a  different  notion  of  himself,  I  must  confess  I  can 
no  longer  reason  with  him.  .  .  .  He  may,  perhaps,  perceive  some- 
thing simple  and  continued,  which  he  calls  himself,  though  I  am 
certain  there  is  no  such  principle  in  me." — Human  Nature, 
Part  iv.  see.  2.  Dr.  Thomas  Reid  says :  "  I  am  conscious  of 
perception,  but  not  of  the  object  I  perceive ;  I  am  conscious  of 
memory,  but  not  of  the  object  I  remember."  But  he  guards 
himself  against  the  conclusion  drawn  by  Hume  from  their 
common  assumption,  by  insisting  that,  though  consciousness  does 
not  give  us  the  intuition  of  self,  yet  we  have  a  firm  belief  of  the 
reality  of  the  self,  through  a  native  and  necessary  suggestion, 
for  "  our  sensations  and  thoughts  do  also  suggest  the  notion  of  a 
mind,  and  the  belief  of  its  existence  and  of  its  relation  to  our 
thoughts." — Inquiry,  cJiap.  ii,  §  7.  Dugald  Stewart  says :  "  We 
are  conscious  of  sensation,  thought,  desire,  volition,  but  we  are 
not  conscious  of  the  existence  of  the  mind  itself.  This  is  made 
known  to  us  by  a  suggestion  of  the  understanding  consequent  on 
the  sensation,  but  so  intimately  connected  with  it  that  it  is  not 
surprising  that  our  belief  of  both  should  be  generally  referred  to 
the  same  origin." — Phil.  Essays,  p.  i,  c.  i.  Dr.  Thomas  Brown 
says  of  a  special  sensation,  as  of  fragrance :  "  There  will  be,  in  the 
first  momentary  state,  no  separation  of  self  and  the  sensation, 
no  little  proposition  formed  in  the  mind — I  feel,  or  I  am  con- 
scious of  a  feeling,  but  the  feeling  and  the  sentient  J,  will  for  the 


70  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  60. 

moment  be  the  same.  If  the  remembrance  of  the  former  feeling 
arise,  and  the  two  different  feelings  be  considered  by  the  mind  al 
once,  it  will  now,  by  that  irresistible  law  of  our  nature  which 
impresses  us  with  the  conviction  of  our  identity,  conceive  the  two 
sensations  which  it  recognizes  as  different  in  themselves,  to  have 
belonged  to  the  same  human  being — that  being  to  which,  when 
it  has  the  use  of  language,  it  gives  the  name  of  self,  and  in  rela- 
tion to  which  it  speaks  as  often  as  it  uses  the  pronoun  I." — 
Lecture  xi.  Hamilton  says :  "  On  the  other  hand,  as  there  exists 
no  intuitive  or  immediate  knowledge  of  self  as  the  absolute 
subject  of  thought,  feeling  and  desire,  but,  on  the  contrary,  there 
is  only  possible  a  deduced,  relative  and  secondary  knowledge 
of  self  as  the  permanent  basis  of  these  transient  modifications 
of  which  we  are  directly  conscious,  it  follows,"  etc. — Notes  on 
Reid,  (#.,)  p.  29,  b.—  Cf.  Met.  Lee.  19,  on  Mental  Unity. 
Mansel  dissents  from  Hamilton  on  this  point.  (Prolegom.  Log., 
c.  v.)  "  I  am  immediately  conscious  of  myself,  seeing  and  hearing, 
willing  and  thinking."  James  Mill  agrees  with  Brown,  etc.: 
"  To  say  that  I  am  conscious  of  a  feeling,  is  merely  to  say  that  I 
feel  it.  To  have  a  feeling  is  to  be  conscious,  and  to  be  conscious 
is  to  have  a  feeling.  To  be  conscious  of  the  prick  of  a  pin,  is 
merely  to  have  the  sensation." — (Analysis  of  the  Human  Mind, 
Chap,  v.)  But  he  corrects  himself  in  another  passage,  as  follows : 
"  The  consciousness  of  the  present  moment  is  not  absolutely  simple, 
for  whether  I  have  a  sensation  or  an  idea,  the  idea  of  what  I  call 
myself  is  always  inseparably  combined  with  it.  The  conscious- 
ness, then,  of  the  second  of  the  two  moments  in  the  case  supposed, 
[the  case  of  remembering  a  preceding  state,]  is1  the  sensation 
combined  with  the  idea  of  myself,  which  compound  I  call  '  myself 
.sentient,' "  etc. — (Id.  Chap,  x.)  John  Stuart  Mill  says,  in  the 
/same  strain :  "  My  mind  is  but  a  series  of  feelings,"  and  defines  it 
Us,  "a  thread  of  consciousness,"  "a  series  of  feelings  with  a  back- 
ground of  possibilities  of  feeling." — (Exam,  of  the  Phil,  of  Hamilton^ 
c.  12;  cf.  Me  Cosh,  Fundamental  Truth,  etc.,  c.  5.) 

It  will  be  found,  moreover,  that  all  those  writers  who  deny  or 
doubt  this,  do  yet  incidentally  betray  their  faith  in  the  reality 
which  they  by  words  or  reasonings  oppose.  Dr.  Brown,  who  is 
so  earnest  in  opposing  it,  cannot  thread  together  the  several  ex- 
periences of  the  soul's  life,  without  resorting  to  "  the  irresistible 


§61.  NATURAL  CONSCIOUSNESS.  71 

law  of  our  nature  which  impresses  us  with  the  conviction  of  our 
identity,"  and  James  Mill  himself  is  forced  in  one  sentence  to 
confess  what  he  stoutly  denies  in  another,  "  for  whether  I  have 
a  sensation  or  an  idea,  the  idea  of  what  I  call  myself,  is  always 
inseparably  combined  with  it."  These  are  more  or  less  distinct 
acknowledgments  of  that  direct  knowledge  of  the  ego  which  enters 
as  an  essential  constituent  into  every  conscious  state  of  the  soul. 
§  61.  Third,  we  inquire  still  further,  What  are 

,  ,      .  „  .  , ,  7  .     .         n,    ^        The  relation  ol 

the  relations  of  consciousness  to  the  objects  of  the  consciousness 
psychical   acts   and  states?     Is   the  soul   conscious  of  psychical 
of  the  objects  as  truly  as  it  is  of  the  states  them- 
selves ?     When  I  gaze  upon  a  landscape,  and  am  delighted,  am 
I  conscious  of  the  landscape  which  I  see,  as  truly  as  I  am  con- 
scious of  the  act  of  seeing  and  of  the  delight  which  it  gives  ? 
It  is  maintained  that  it  is  a  gross  impropriety  to  say  that  we  are 
conscious  of  the  landscape,  except  in  the  general  sense  in  which 
we  use  conscious  as  the  equivalent  of  knowing.    Thus  Reid  «ays  in 
the  words  already  cited :  "  I  am  conscious  of  perception  but  not 
of  the  object  I  perceive,  I  am  conscious  of  memory,  but  not  of 
the  object  I  remember." 

The  truth  is,  that  we  are  conscious  of  the  object  somewhat  as 
we  are  conscious  of  the  ego.  The  state  or  operation  is  the 
central  object  of  apprehension ;  but  as  the  state  can  neither  occur 
nor  be  known  except  as  having  a  relation  to  the  unchanging  egot 
so  each  separate  state  is  distinguished  in  part  by  its  object.  This 
is  especially  true  if  it  is  preeminently  a  state  of  knowledge.  We 
distinguish  one  such  state  from  another  by  what  we  know ;  e.  g., 
in  one  moment  I  perceive  a  tree,  in  another  a  house,  etc.,  i.  e.,  I  can- 
riot  be  conscious  that  I  perceive  a  house  or  a  tree,  unless  I  notice 
the  relation  of  the  act  itself  to  the  house  or  tree. 

We  do  not  eay  that  two  states  of  knowledge  cannot  be  dis- 
tinguished subjectively  as  well  as  by  their  objects.  We  know 
that  an  act  of  knowledge  never  can  occur  by  itself  without  some 
feeling,  desire  and  will.  So  far  as  it  is  a  state  of  feeling  and 
will  it  is  purely  subjective.  The*e  subjective  elements  attract 
the  notice  of  consciousness  preeminently,  and  these  mark  and 
individualize  the  state  to  the  soul's  memory.  But  when  such 
Btates  are  described  in  language  or  recalled  to  the  thoughts  by  an 
explicit  statement,  they  are  described  by  their  objects.  Even  a  state 


72  THE   HUMAN  INTELLECT.  §  62 

of  the  most  absorbed  feeling  is  indicated  by  the  object  or  event 
which  excited  the  emotion.  We  cannot  conceive  it  possible  that 
we  should  know  that  we  know,  enjoy,  or  choose,  without  knowing 
what  we  know,  enjoy  or  choose.  In  other  words,  in  being  con- 
scious of  an  act  or  state,  we  must  be  conscious  of  the  state  cr  act 
in  relation  to,  and  as  therefore  including  the  object. 

We  recapitulate  thus :  The  object  of  consciousness  is  a  state 
or  act  of  the  soul ;  this  state  or  act  must  occur  or  exist  in  order 
that  it  may  be  known ;  but  it  does  not  exist  before  it  is  known  in 
the  order  of  time,  but  only  in  the  order  of  dependence,  or  of 
logical  necessity.  So  far  as  the  order  of  time  is  concerned,  it 
exists  while  it  is  known.  What  is  known  of  this  object  must 
depend  on  the  nature  of  the  matter  to  be  known,  and  also  on 
the  reach  or  capacity  of  consciousness  to  observe  it. 

A  psychical  act  or  state,  as  we  have  seen,  is  in  its  nature 
complex,  consisting  of  three  elements  in  intimate  relation  to 
each  other:  the  ego;  the  object;  the  acting  or  suffering  of  the 
passing  moment.  But  the  act  or  suffering  is  inconceivable, 
except  as  belonging  to  the  ego  and  denned  by  the  object.  Of 
this  double  relation  consciousness  must  take  notice.  It  must, 
therefore,  also  take  notice  of  the  terms  or  elements  which  are 
related. 

The  object  of  §  62.  We  observe  still  further,  that  consciousness 
isTsSof88  tne  object,  as  contradistinguished  from  consciousness 
being.  tke  actj  jg  a  gtate  or  condition  of  being,  as  contrasted 

with  an  act  of  knowledge.  Knowledge  of  every  kind  as  has 
been  shown,  supposes  and  requires  being  as  its  objective  correlate. 
The  being,  known  by  consciousness,  is  a  spiritual  being,  a  perma- 
nent identical  agent  or  producer  of  the  states  and  acts  which  are 
known ;  i.  e.,  a  being  in  the  eminent  and  higher  sense,  substan- 
tial or  real  being.  This  the  mind  knows  to  be,  or  to  exist,  by  a 
direct  or  immediate  act  of  its  own.  In  every  act  of  conscious- 
ness, knowledge  is  directly  confronted  with  actual  being,  and 
the  being  which  is  known  is  affirmed  to  be  identical  with  the 
being  which  knows. 

The  saying   of  Descartes,    Cogito,  ergo  sum,    has 
preeminent  propriety  and  obvious  truth  when  applied 
to  the  act  of  consciousness.     It  means  more  than,  I 
find  myself  a  thinking  being,  and  therefore  I,  the  thinking  being, 


§  63.  NATURAL  CONSCIOUSNESS.  73 

exist ;  but  it  means  conscius  sum,  that  is,  I  know  directly  and 
positively  myself  as  a  being.  It  has  been  said  with  eminent 
truth  that  absolute  skepticism  is  incompatible  with  the  act  of  con- 
sciousness ;  because,  if  I  doubt  or  question  any  reality,  or  what- 
ever reality  I  doubt  or  question,  I  cannot  doubt  or  question  that 
I  myself  doubt  or  question.  The  same  truth  is  confirmed  by 
the  view  already  taken,  that  to  consciousness  as  the  act,  an  object 
must  be  present  and  known ;  and  this  object  is  an  existing  being, 
which  is  known  or  affirmed  by  the  very  act  of  consciousness  to 
exist. 

§  63.  Not  onlv  is  the  reality  and  validity  of  beinq 

The  validity  of  -ITI-I-I  •          i        i     •          i 

relations  is  also  thus  established,  because  involved  in  the  act  and 
object  of  consciousness,  but  the  relations  of  being 
are  as  necessarily  affirmed.  The  several  states  of  the  soul  are 
not  only  discriminated  as  diverse  from  one  another,  but  they  are 
known  to  be  like  and  unlike.  They  are  also  known  to  be  pro- 
duced by  the  soul  which  is  conscious  that  they  exist ;  that  is, 
they  are  known  under  the  relation  of  causation. 

In  view  of  these  facts,  we  need  not  wonder  that  even  the 
ancient  philosophers  counted  the  human  soul,  thus  known  by 
and  to  itself,  to  be  a  microcosm  or  epitome  of  the  great  universe. 
In  the  spirit  of  man,  and  in  the  exercise  of  the  simplest  and  the 
most  essential  of  its  powers,  thought  and  being  are  both  con- 
joined ;  the  one  is  confronted  with  the  other,  the  one  is  essential 
to  the  other.  Thought  is  perpetually  springing  out  of  being,  and 
apprehending  being  to  exist — not  only  simple  being,  but  being 
in  all  its  forms  of  activity  and  the  relations  which  they  involve. 

Nor  should  we  be  surprised  to  find  that  all  the  conceptions 
which  are  necessary  to  scientific  knowledge — those  categories 
which  cannot  be  proved,  but  which  must  be  assumed — those 
prime  relations  and  first  truths  on  which  all  our  higher  in- 
telligence of  matter  or  spirit  depends,  are  affirmed  of  spiritual 
being  in  the  act  of  consciousness  itself.  It  is  natural  to  man  to 
make  himself  the  measure  of  the  universe — i.  e.,  to  take  the 
little  universe  of  being  which  he  knows  so  directly  and  so  well, 
with  the  relations  involved,  to  be  the  analogon  of  the  greater 
universe  which  lies  beyond,  and  which  is  more  indirectly  known. 
This  is  the  process  by  which  many  explain  our  belief  in  the 
authority  and  universality  of  the  categories  or  first  truths. 


74  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  64. 

§  64.  It  has  been  already  stated  that  conseious- 
ment6  ana-el°P"  ness,  though  natural  and  necessary  to  every  human 
fck>usness.con~  soul  whose  powers  are  normally  developed,  is  not  ex- 
ercised at  the  beginning  of  its  existence,  but  only 
after  certain  conditions  and  stages  of  growth  have  been  attained, 
and  the  power  to  apply  them  has  been  matured.  The  order  of 
this  development  and  maturity  may  be  sketched  as  follows : 

The  first  activities  are  those  of  simple  life.  These,  whether  they  pertain  to 
the  body  or  the  soul,  are  unconscious.  All  forms  of  reflex  nerve-action,  all  the 
purely  instinctive  movements  of  either  body  or  soul,  or  of  both  combined,  arc 
known  to  be  unattended  by  conscious  apprehension.  But  all  these  activities  aro 
exercised  in  great  number  and  for  a  long  time  before  the  experience  of  sensations. 

As  soon  as  a  sensation  occurs,  whether  painful  or  pleasant,  it  must  be  felt.  It 
is  essential  to  its  very  nature  to  be  experienced  by  a  sentient  being,  and  to  bo 
felt  as  painful  or  pleasant.  This  experience,  whether  in  man  or  animal,  involves 
some  sort  of  possible  apprehension  of  self  as  the  subject  of  its  pain  or  pleasure. 
This  is  not  consciousness,  as  we  use  the  term,  but  only  consciousness  in  its 
lowest  and  most  rudimentary  form.  By  some  it  is  called  the  feeling  as  distin- 
guished from  the  knowledge  of  self,  or  self -feeling.  As  long  as  the  sensations  are 
confused  together  and  are  not  discriminated,  whether  they  are  weak  or  strong 
the  soul  remains  in  this  elementary  condition  of  comparative  unconsciousness. 
This  is  the  condition  of  the  infant.  It  is  also  the  condition  into  which  the  de- 
veloped man  relapses  in  swooning,  distraction,  intoxication,  or  approaching 
sleep.  In  the  infant  such  a  condition  cannot  be  remembered,  for  reasons  which 
we  will  give  in  their  place.  The  man  can  recall  it  but  dimly,  and  only  as  he 
measures  and  imagines  the  state,  by  contrast  with  those  of  which  he  is  distinctly 
conscious,  and  which  he  can  clearly  recall. 

But  when  the  several  sensations  are  discriminated  from  one  another,  the  soul 
reaches  a  higher  stage.  But  even  this  does  not  involve  consciousness,  unless  the 
sensations  are  also  discriminated  from  the  self  to  which  they  pertain.  Observa- 
tion attests  that  the  one  is  possible  without  the  other.  Even  the  external  objects 
that  occasion  the  sensations,  may  be  distinguished  from  one  another  and  from 
the  sensations  which  attend  them,  before  the  soul  distinctly  recognizes  these 
sensations  as  its  own.  No  fact  is  more  patent  to  universal  observation,  than  that, 
in  infancy  and  childhood,  man  is  occupied  with  the  objective,  with  very  infre- 
quent cognition  of  self  as  contrasted  with  his  sensations  or  their  objects,  or  with 
the  impulse  that  carries  the  feelings  and  actions  without. 

As  soon  as  feelings  of  another  character  are  experienced — emotions  proper, 
and  not  sensations,  emotions  which  are  perhaps  antagonistic  to  sensations  an;l 
their  impulses — the  opportunity  is  presented  for  the  soul  to  distinguish  its  own 
agency  and  itself  as  an  actor  or  sufferer,  as  contrasted  with  itself  as  purely  sen- 
tient ;  i.  e.,  as  carried  out  of  itself  by  its  sensations  and  appetites.  The  soul  fur- 
nishes in  itself  the  condition  for  that  reflex  act  which  we  call  the  conscious  discrimi-/ 
nation  of  its  states  as  its  own.  It  can  know  itself  as  an  actor  and  sufferer,  whilg 
the  act  of  consciousness  is  not  explained  by  its  conditions,  and  is  not  developed 
nor  produced  by  these  conditions.  We  concede  that  it  does  not  occur  be- 


§  64.  NATURAL   CONSCIOUSNESS.  75 

fore  these  conditions  are  furnished,  and  these  conditions  do  not  exist  till  the  soul 
has  reached  a  stage  of  development  that  is  somewhat  advanced,  and  has  had 
ample  experience  of  the  world  without  as  well  as  the  world  within. 

The  baby,  new  to  earth  and  sky, 

What  time  his  tender  palm  is  pressed 

Against  the  circle  of  the  breast, 
Has  never  thought  that  this  is  I. 

But  as  he  grows,  he  gathers  much, 

And  learns  the  use  of  I  and  me, 

And  finds  I  am  not  what  I  see, 
And  other  than  the  things  I  touch  j 

So  rounds  he  to  a  separate  mind, 

From  whence  clear  memory  may  begin, 
As  thro'  the  frame  that  binds  him  in, 
His  isolation  grows  defined. 

TENNYSON. — In  Memoriam. 

The  object  discerned  by  the  act  of  consciousness  is  not,  as  we  have  already  ob- 
served, the  soul  itself,  as  a  substance  or  subject,  with  all  its  capacities  and 
powers ;  for,  besides  those  capacities  which  consciousness  apprehends,  there  are 
others  which  it  does  not  reach.  Even  the  cause  or  source  of  many  which  it  does 
discern  are  beyond  its  direct  cognition.  In  all  of  these  operations  the  sentient 
power  acts  out  of  sight,  receiving  or  rejecting  those  objects  for  which  nature  has 
or  has  not  adapted  its  action.  Even  after  the  soul  acts  and  appears  as  the  ego, 
and,  as  such  is  the  conscious  subject  of  its  higher  acts,  it  also  acts  as  the  un- 
conscious subject  of  many  others.  As  the  subject  of  many  similar  acts  and  states 
objectively  known  to  the  conscious  ego,  it  is  called  the  self;  as  the  agent  which 
is  actor,  and  also  conscious  of  individual  acts,  it  is  called  the  ego,  or  I.  Pre- 
eminently it  is  the  ego,  or  I,  when  it  makes  itself  manifest  in  an  act  of  will,  as 
the  regulator  or  controller  of  the  blind  impulses  and  desires. 

The  act  of  conscious  self-apprehension  may  also  be  more  or  less  frequently  ex- 
ercised by  different  men,  after  the  capacity  for  it  has  been  reached.  The  condi- 
tions may  be  more  or  less  favorable  for  its  exercise,  after  the  power  has  been 
matured.  First,  the  objective  conditions  may  be  more  ample  and  energetic  in 
one  man  than  in  another.  The  corporeal  nature  of  one  may  so  hold  the  spirit  by 
obtrusive  and  engrossing  sensations  as  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  that  dis- 
crimination which  is  the  first  condition  of  conscious  knowledge.  Thus  the  body 
of  the  idiot  or  the  half-witted  may  so  preoccupy  the  energies  as  almost  to  de- 
tain it  in  the  anhnalized  state.  Moral  obliquity,  especially  in  early  life,  may  al- 
most literally  brutify  or  sensualize  its  condition.  Various  morbid  conditions  of 
the  body  may  come  in  at  an  early  period  of  the  soul's  development  to  arrest  its 
natural  progress,  by  filling  up  its  experience  with  continued  sensations  of  wcak~ 
ness  and  pain.  Even  a  low  energy  of  vital  force  may  give  to  consciousness  only 
feeble  sensational  activity  and  inert  impelling  forces,  which  are  too  unobtrusive 
to  elicit  discriminating  cognition.  The  occupations,  cares  and  interests  may  be 
so  material  and  sordid,  as  to  fill  up  the  life  with  activities  that  are  solely  objec- 
tive. The  nsychical  nature  of  one  person  may  also  be  far  richer  and  more  varied 
in  its  capacities  than  that  of  another,  furnishing  the  material  for  conscious  ob* 


76  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  65, 

serration  that  is  comparatively  copious  and  inviting.  Second,  the  subjective 
capacity  of  conscious  activity  differs  in  degrees  in  different  persons.  The  natu- 
ral powers,  the  acquired  facility,  and  the  inclination  to  look  inward,  are  stronger 
in  some  than  in  others ;  and  hence  in  some  men  that  is  a  passion  which  in  others 
is  rarely  and  ineffectually  performed.  Nature,  habit,  and  art  exhibit  surprising 
diversities  and  contrasts  in  this  respect. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  capacity  for  consciousness  is  not  the  product  of  acci- 
dental conditions  or  circumstances,  nor  is  it  the  result  of  any  development  from 
any  lower  existence,  but  is  provided  in  the  nature  of  man  and  the  designs  of  his 
Creator.  The  brute  is  not  self-conscious  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances, 
nor  can  he  become  so  as  the  result  of  any  development  whatever.  He  may  be 
like  man  in  the  lower  stages  of  being,  in  the  experience  of  what  we  call  bodily 
sensations  and  animal  appetites ;  but  he  never  discriminates  one  sensation  from 
another  by  a  self-conscious  act,  simply  because  he  has  not  the  capacity.  Much 
less  does  he  distinguish  the  self  from  its  states,  because  there  is  no  self  and  no  states 
to  be  thus  distinguished.  Hence  he  can,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word,  neither 
remember,  nor  generalize,  nor  reason,  nor  judge,  so  far  as  these  involve  the  re- 
ference of  acts  or  objects  to  himself  by  appropriate  acts  and  products.  He  can- 
not purpose  or  choose,  for  a  similar  reason.  Neither  the  objective  conditions  of 
these  acts  are  furnished  in  his  own  nature,  nor  is  the  subjective  capacity  to  dis- 
cern them. 

§   65.   The  question  has  been   discussed   of  late 

Latent  modifi- 

cations  of  con-    among  English  psychologists,  whether  there  can  be 

sciousness. 

any  latent  modifications  of  consciousness.  The  phrase 
is  infelicitous,  because  apparently  self-contradictory — a  latent 
modification  of  that  which,  in  its  very  essence,  is  an  act  or  an 
object  of  knowledge,  being  apparently,  both  in  word  and  thought, 
impossible.  The  truth  which  the  phrase  was  designed  to  de- 
scribe is,  however,  real  and  important,  and  deserves  to  be  clearly 
stated.  That  the  soul  may  act  without  being  conscious  of  what 
it  does,  or  even  that  it  acts  at  all,  has  been  already  established. 
That  these  unconscious  acts  affect  those  acts  of  which  it  is  con- 
scious, and  their  objects,  is  equally  evident.  We  have  already 
distinguished  between  those  processes  by  which  the  soul,  so  to 
speak,  prepares  objects  for  its  conscious  apprehension,  and  the 
acts  of  knowing  these  objects  when  thus  prepared.  All  effects 
of  this  kind  are  accomplished  by  modifications  of  the  soul 
which  are  latent — i.  e.,  unknown  to  the  direct  inspection  of  con- 
sciousness. 

Many  of  the  instances  cited  as  examples  of  latent  modifications 
of  consciousness  are  only  examples  of  objects  observed  with  less 
attention — objects  comparatively  unheeded,  which  may  be  after- 
ward revived  with  greater  distinctness.  For  example,  I  write 


§  65.  NATURAL   CONSCIOUSNESS.  77 

hastily,  to-day,  a  word  or  a  phrase  which  is  incorrect  or  ungram- 
matical.  I  do  not  notice  the  error,  but  I  recall  it  to-morrow, 
and  notice  the  mistake  by  an  act  of  memory.  Qr,  I  see  a  per- 
son, and,  at  the  time,  do  not  notice  some  article  of  his  dress  or 
some  peculiarity  in  his  look  or  language,  but  recall  either  dis* 
tinctly  on  reflection.  Or  some  part  of  a  total  perception,  as  of  a 
crowded  and  active  company,  or  a  varied  landscape,  apparently 
escapes  my  notice.  It  is  a  mere  accessory,  a  subordinate,  nearly 
overlooked  in  comparison  with  the  central  figures  or  objects  ;  and 
yet  it  may  serve  as  a  link  in  the  restoration  of  a  train  of  con- 
nected objects.  These  objects  are  not  latent,  though  very  little 
attended  to.  Leibnitz  (Nouveaux  JEssais,  ii.  c.  i.)  cites  the  case 
of  the  sound  of  the  sea  as  an  example.  A  single  wave  does  not 
affect  the  ear,  but  only  many,  when  combined.  And  yet  each 
wave  must  contribute  its  share  in  affecting  the  conscious  mind, 
or  the  whole  could  not  be  heard.  A  distinction  is  to  be  made  in 
this  instance  between  the  impulse  of  a  single  wave  upon  the 
organ  of  hearing,  and  the  experience  of  the  sensation.  The  ac- 
tion of  many  waves  together  may  be  required  to  bring  the  organ 
into  the  condition  necessary  for  the  sensation  in  question,  or  any 
other.  To  the  total  effect  upon  the  organ  each  wave  may  con- 
tribute its  part,  without  moving  the  consciousness  in  the  least, 
even  latently. 

The  general  truth  cannot,  however,  be  controverted,  that  the 
unconscious  and  conscious  processes  of  the  soul  act  and  react  on 
one  another  continually,  and  that  neither  should  be  overlooked  in 
the  science  which  explains  its  phenomena.  Consciousness,  though 
the  most  important,  is,  therefore,  not  the  only  source  of  our 
knowledge  of  the  soul,  and  its  powers  and  laws. 


78  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  661 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE   REFLECTIVE,  OR   PHILOSOPHICAL   CONSCIOUSNESS. 

§  66.  HITHERTO  we  have  considered  consciousness 

The  reflective 

consciousness  as  the  common  endowment  and  universal  character- 
istic  of  the  human  race.  Every  human  being  is 
capable  of  being  conscious  of  his  psychical  states.  Every  man 
who  is  normally  developed  is  actually  conscious  of  these  states  at 
a  very  early  period  of  his  existence. 

We  have,  however,  distinguished  and  defined  another  species 
of  consciousness.  This  is  the  artificial,  or  secondary  conscious- 
ness, and  it  is  attained  by  comparatively  few.  Though  all  men 
can  understand  and  appreciate  the  descriptions  and  appeals  of 
the  dramatist  and  the  orator,  there  are  but  few  who  can  originate 
and  enforce  them.  The  consciousness  which  discovers  and  teaches 
is  properly  called  the  philosophical  and  reflective  consciousness. 
"We  proceed  to  consider  more  particularly,  "  What  is  the  reflec- 
tive consciousness  ?  and,  What  are  its  relations  to  the  natural  con- 
sciousness ?" 

The  reflective  consciousness  is  the  natural  consciousness  exer- 
cised with  earnest  and  persistent  attention.  It  has  already  been 
shown  that  every  intellectual  power  may  be  used  with  a  greater 
or  less  degree  of  energy.  We  have  also  seen  that  the  develop- 
ment of  the  natural  consciousness  through  its  successive  stages  is 
but  the  development  of  an  increase  of  attention.  When  the 
habit  is  carried  to  a  still  higher  degree  of  energy,  and  the  subjec- 
tive states  and  activities  become  familiar  and  frequent  objects  of 
contemplation,  the  natural  or  spontaneous  becomes  the  artificial 
or  reflective  consciousness. 

It  may  help  us  still  further  to  accept  the  possibility  and  to  un- 
derstand the  nature  of  consciousness  as  modified  by  attention,  to 
consider  it  in  the  two  forms  of  the  abnormal  and  the  ethical  self- 
consciousness. 

The  abnormal  or  the  morbid  self-consciousness  is 

co^SSf  distinguished  by  any  degree  of  attention  to  one's  own 

1adu?teldreaand  psychical  state  which  interferes  with  the  normal  use  and 

development  of  the  powers.    Children  are  appointed 


§  66.   THE  REFLECTIVE,  OR  PHILOSOPHICAL   CONSCIOUSNESS.     79 

by  nature  to  an  objective,  and,  in  one  sense,  an  animal  life.  But 
now  and  then  a  child,  through  an  unfortunate  bias,  or  some  ill- 
judged  training,  has  learned  to  look  inward  upon  itself  with 
unnatural  precocity.  As  a  consequence,  the  subjective  pre- 
dominates over  the  objective,  the  tendency  to  reflect  hinders  the 
power  to  acquire ;  and  that  easy  and  spontaneous  play  of  ob- 
servation, memory,  imagination,  wit,  and  invention,  which  is  the 
strength  and  the  charm  of  childhood,  is  excluded  or  hindered. 

Among  adults  frequent  examples  occur  of  a  morbid  or  unnatural 
attention  to  the  inner  life.  Hypochondriacs,  who  are  haunted 
by  disturbing  sensations  which  proceed  from  bodily  disease,  till 
their  attention  is  so  absorbed  in  watching  these  sensations  that  it 
cannot  respond  to  the  objects  that  are  fitted  to  ^amuse  and  incite 
to  action,  furnish  one  example.  Men  who  have  inherited  or  in- 
dulged a  sensitive  nature  till  it  has  become  their  tyrant ;  who 
watch  their  feelings  with  a  selfish  exclusiveness,  or  who  pamper 
them  with  a  dainty  fastidiousness,  like  Rousseau,  may  become 
half  insane  through  brooding  over  their  own  exaggerated  sufferings 
and  wrongs. 

Another  type  of  the  abnormal  consciousness  is  that  which 
results  from  an  egoistic  thoughtfulness  of  one's  appearance,  man- 
ners, words,  looks,  actions  or  achievements,  which  shows  itself  in 
the  countless  forms  of  affectation  that  are  displayed  in  manners, 
art,  or  literature.  So  common  has  this  become  in  the  artifi- 
cial society  of  modern  times,  that  it  has  given  a  new  sense  to 
the  words  conscious  and  consciousness,  with  and  without  self  as 
a  prefix. 

The  ethical  type  is  that  attention  to  one's  innet 
consdousnes*1  states  which  is  applied  in  view  of  a  moral  standard, 
for  the  purposes  of  self-correction  and  self-improve- 
ment. That  this  is  not  abnormal  is  obvious  from  the  fact  that 
the  word  reflection,  which  originally  signified  any  reflex  action 
of  the  soul,  has  acquired  the  secondary  signification  of  its  use  and 
application  for  ethical  purposes.  This  kind  of  reflective  conscious- 
ness always  brings  with  it  some  intellectual  discipline.  Chris* 
tianity  has  trained  the  intellect  of  the  human  race  to  this  ac- 
tivity, and  hence  has  been  so  efficient  in  educating  and  elevating 
the  masses  of  men,  even  when  it  has  furnished  little  formal  in- 
tellectual culture. 


80  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  67. 

§  67.  The  type  of  the  reflective  consciousness  with 
which  we  are   specially  concerned  is   that  which  is  Sflec 
properly  called  philosophical,  because  it  is  used  for  chaSS 
scientific  ends.     In   common  with  the  types  already  auen 
referred  to,  it  involves  attention.     But  if  the  atten- 
tion is  to  yield  important  scientific  results,  it  must  be  employed  in 
a  peculiar  way,  with  distinct  reference  to  peculiar  ends,  and  with 
the  aid  of  special  appliances.     Its  characteristics  are  the  follow- 
ing: 

First :  It  is  persistent  in  its  observations.  It  not  only  attends 
to  the  phenomena  of  the  soul  as  inclination  or  duty  may  decide, 
but  it  attends  continuously,  in  order  that  it  may  carefully  ob- 
serve and  accurately  remember.  But  how  can  the  mind  attend 
continuously  to  the  same  mental  state?  Of  material  objects 
many  of  the  phenomena  are  permanent;  they  retain  an  un- 
changing identity.  We  can  observe  them  again  and  again, 
till  we  are  certain  that  we  have  attained  a  definite  impression, 
and  can  bring  away  a  satisfying  recollection.  But  the  mental 
phenomenon  is  but  for  an  instant.  If  we  look  for  it,  in  order  that  we 
may  look  at  it  the  second  time,  it  is  not  there.  It  existed  only 
so  long  as,  by  our  own  act,  we  gave  it  being  ;  and  when  that  ac- 
tivity is  intermitted,  the  object  which  we  would  fain  examine  by 
a  second  look  is  no  longer  and  nowhere  to  be  found.  The  only 
resource  which  we  have,  is  to  prolong  the  state  by  continually 
renewing  or  repeating  it.  To  this  act  or  effort  of  prolongation 
Locke  gives  the  name  of  retention,  and  this  he  describes  as  a 
peculiar  mental  act  (Essay,  B.  ii.  c.  x.  §  1).  But  can  we  pro- 
long a  single  state  beyond  its  assigned  period  of  time  ?  Is  not  a 
single  state  limited  to  a  definite  period  of  duration  ?  The  ques- 
tion is  trivial,  and  it  is  of  no  consequence  how  it  is  answered. 
Whether  we  can  prolong  a  state  or  not,  we  can  certainly  repeat 
it  again  and  again,  allowing  no  other  activity  to  intervene. 
What  we  fail  to  notice  at  one  view,  we  observe  in  another.  What 
we  only  faintly  apprehend  at  the  first  sight,  we  fix  and  confirm 
at  the  second.  What  we  observe  incorrectly  or  partially  in  one 
act,  we  discern  truly  and  completely  in  the  act  which  follows. 
The  uninterrupted  repetition  of  similar  psychical  states  is  the  sub- 
stitute for  literal  continuity  in  the  object  observed,  and  hence  is  a 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  philosophic  consciousness.  It 


§  69.     THE  REFLECTIVE,  OR  PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSCIOUSNESS.      81 

is  because  the  mind,  as  it  were,  turns  thus  in  upon  itself,  that  this 
effort  of  consciousness  is  termed  reflection — i.  e.,  the  bending 
back  or  retortion  of  the  soul  on  itself.  It  is  because  this  repeti- 
tion of  the  object,  and  retortion  in  the  act,  are  found  to  be  practi- 
cally necessary,  in  order  to  any  accurate  and  successful  observa- 
tion of  consciousness,  that  consciousness,  the  act,  has  been  sup- 
posed to  be  a  remembrance,  a  sort  of  second  thought,  and  the 
power  has  been  resolved  into  memory. 

Other  advantages  are  secured  by  this  repetition  of  the  mind's 
activity,  and  one  especially,  that  it  is  capable  of  being  viewed 
more  coolly.  If  I  am  absorbed  by  the  beauty  of  a  splendid  pic^ 
ture,  or  a  glorious  sunset,  I  shall  not  be  likely,  when  these  objects 
first  break  upon  my  sight,  to  give  much  attention  to  the  act  or 
process  by  which  I  view  them  in  order  to  ascertain  its  exact 
nature,  or  to  the  emotion  with  which  I  am  literally  rapt  or  car- 
ried out  of  myself,  to  discover  whether  delight  prevails  over 
wonder.  But  when  my  curiosity  is  satisfied,  and  my  feelings  are 
calmer,  then  I  have  some  energy  to  withdraw  from  the  act  of  see- 
ing and  the  feeling  of  admiration,  which  I  can  employ  in  reflex 
attention  to  the  act  and  the  emotion. 

§68.  Second:  The  philosophical  consciousness  is  Itattendstoall 
comprehensive  in  its  observations.  It  brings  within 
its  field  of  view  all  the  phenomena  of  the  soul.  Its 
object  being  to  know  all  its  powers,  it  must  of  course  consider 
and  attend  to  all  its  phenomena.  The  philosopher  may  not, 
like  the  man  of  morbid  or  abnormal  tendencies,  give  an  exclu- 
sive and  one-sided  regard  to  certain  feelings,  or  to  a  few  species 
of  intellectual  acts  ;  but  he  must  regard  all  the  variety  of  expe- 
riences of  which  his  being  is  capable,  omitting  none,  being  partial 
to  none,  doing  full  justice  to  each  and  to  all.  This  principle  is 
accepted  as  a  cardinal  maxim  of  the  inductive  method.  To 
whatever  object-matter  this  method  is  applied,  it  is  essential  that 
all  the  facts  should  b$  fairly  considered.  Nature  is  an  honest 
witness,  and  stands  pledged  to  tell  not  only  the  truth,  but  the 
whole  truth.  Those  who  examine  the  witness  are  equally  bound 
to  hear  the  whole  truth,  and  to  open  their  minds  attentively  to 
consider  it. 

§  69.  Third :  The  philosophical  consciousness  at- 
tends to  psychical  phenomena,  in  order  that  it  may 
compare  them ;  and  it  compares  these  phenomena,  in 

4* 


82  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §71 

order  that  it  may  unite  those  which  are  alike,  and  distinguish 
those  which  are  unjike.  Its  aim  is  scientific  knowledge ;  and 
science  is  knowledge  that  is  comparative  and  discriminating.  In 
other  words,  it  is  classified  and  arranged  knowledge. 

The  power  to  discern  relations  sharply,  surely,  and  quickly? 
may  to  a  certain  extent  be  a  special  endowment  or  gift  of  nature. 
Its  successful  exercise  or  application,  however,  is  the  result  of 
attentive  comparison.  The  observer  must  bring  the  facts  toge- 
ther, placing  them  side  by  side.  He  must  then  consider  them  in 
their  connections,  leaving  the  various  relations  to  suggest  them- 
selves. 

§  70.  Fourth :  The  philosophical  consciousness  in- 
\\Sm  terprets  the  phenomena  which  it  unites  and  discrimi- 
iaws?w<  d  nates.  In  other  words,  it  explains  them  by  a  refer- 
ence to  powers  and  laws.  But  the  classification  of  phe- 
nomena is  a  condition  of  science,  rather  than  science  itself.  It  is 
science  begun,  but  not  science  completed.  The  object  of  science 
is  to  ascertain  what  is  familiarly  called  the  nature,  essence,  or 
constitution,  whether  of  the  material  or  the  spiritual  beings  with 
which  it  has  to  do.  It  may  not  be  easy  to  define  what  is  intended 
by  these  terms.  It  is  obvious,  however,  that  something  more  is 
meant  than  a  bundle  of  classified  phenomena.  The  phenomena 
are  supposed  to  indicate  or  reveal  some  power  which  the  being 
possesses.  They  are  to  the  power  as  an  effect  is  to  its  cause. 
The  power  is  conceived  as  a  capacity  to  cause  some  result  or  phe- 
nomenon. Hence  science  is  said  to  be  the  investigation  of  causes, 
principles,  or  powers.  The  scientific  consciousness,  therefore, 
reflects,  that  it  may  refer  phenomena  to  their  causes  or  powers  in 
the  soul. 

But  again  ;  The  powers  or  agents  of  nature  act  according  to 
laws.  These  laws  are  fixed  methods  or  rules  according  to  which 
phenomena  occur,  when  the  conditions  of  their  presence  are  fur- 
nished. The  laws  of  the  soul  are,  therefore,  to  be  discovered  and 
established,  in  order  that  the  science  of  the  soul  may  be  complete, 
and  the  aims  of  the  philosophical  consciousness  may  be  accom- 
plished. 

§  71.  Our  second  inquiry  respected  the  relations  of 

.Relations  ot  .  .  rr 

the  phiiosopM-  ^he  natural  to  the  philosophical  consciousness.     These 

cal  to  the  natu-  *  i          i         AT    •  i, 

rai  conscious-    relations  need  to  be  carefully  considered.     JN  either 
the  natural,  nor  the  ,  reflective  consciousness  creates 


§  71.    THE  EEFLECTIVE,  OR  PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSCIOUSNESS.      83 

these  facts ;  each  only  observes  them  ;  the  one  cursorily  and  to  lit- 
tle scientific  purpose,  the  other  patiently  and  with  comprehensive 
and  sagacious  comparisons.  Psychology  does  not  add  newly-cre- 
ated  phenomena  to  our  stock  of  knowledge,  nor  even  in  one  sense 
newly-discovered  facts.  It  has  to  do  with  old  and  in  one  sense 
well-known  facts,  only  carefully  and  comprehensively  observed  and 
exhibited  in  new  relations.  The  facts,  and  many  of  the  relations 
of  the  facts,  are  as  obvious,  and  in  one  sense  as  truly  known,  to 
the  peasant  as  to  the  philosopher.  When  the  philosopher  teaches 
the  peasant,  he  does  not  impart  new  knowledge  concerning  the 
soul,  by  mere  testimony,  on  the  authority  of  his  own  observations 
and  experiments,  or  those  of  others ;  he  simply  teaches  him  to 
attend  to  the  phenomena  of  his  own  inner  self.  He  says  to  him, 
Look,  and  you  will  find  this  or  that.  In  so  far,  he  only  teaches 
him  what  in  one  sense  he  knew  before. 

But  does  not  the  reflective  consciousness  discover  and  impart 
new  knowledge  ?  Most  certainly.  It  by  no  means  follows,  be- 
cause the  natural  furnishes  to  the  reflective  consciousness  all  its 
facts,  and  the  reflective  must  go  to  the  natural  consciousness  for 
all  its  materials,  that  the  philosophic  consciousness  makes  no  im- 
portant additions  to  the  stock  of  human  knowledge.  The  same 
starry  heavens  are  pictured  on  the  eye  of  the  stupid  or  supersti- 
tious savage,  as  upon  that  of  the  scientific  astronomer  ;  but  how 
much  more  does  the  one  see  in  them  than  the  other !  A  simple 
child  and  a  skilful  engineer  look  upon  a  steam-engine,  both  in 
one  senss  seeing  the  same  objects ;  but  how  much  more  does  the 
one  perceive  in  the  engine  than  the  other,  of  the  powers,  the  laws 
and  the  uses  of  each  separate  part,  and  of  their  action  with  re- 
spect to  the  whole.  The  same  natural  consciousness  is  the  com- 
mon possession  of  the  race ;  but  how  great  is  the  store  of  impor- 
tant scientific  truth  which  reflective  thought  Las  superinduced 
upon,  and  discovered  in  it.  The  reflective  consciousness  imparts 
new  knowledge  as  it  fixes  the  attention  upon  phenomena  which 
the  natural  consciousness  fails  to  observe,  and  as  it  places  these 
phenomena  in  novel  relations  by  comparison,  classification  and 
explanation. 

The  difference  between  the  knowledge  given  by  the  natural 
and  that  acquired  through  the  philosophical  consciousness,  is  well 
illustrated  by  the  individual  conception  of  the  ego,  which  is  com- 


84  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §72. 

mon  to  all,  and  the  generalized  conception  of  the  self  which  is 
the  product  of  reflection.  In  every  act  and  condition  of  the 
natural  corisciousness  there  is  necessarily  present,  the  recognition 
of  the  ego,  as  the  unchanging  subject  of  the  changing  psychical 
states.  It  is  plain  that  neither  reflection  nor  memory  can  create  or 
evolve  this  knowledge ;  for  both  reflection  and  memory  pre-sup- 
pose  and  require  it  as  their  essential  condition.  It  must  be  given 
to  the  mind  by  the  intuition  of  the  natural  consciousness,  or  it  is 
not  given  at  all.  But  the  intuition  is  of  the  individual  ego — 
the  one  single  being  to  which,  and  to  which  alone,  belong  the 
various  and  changing  states  which  are  its  experiences  and  its 
doings,  or  rather  into  which  it  is  constantly  passing  by  suffering 
and  by  action. 

The  conception  of  the  self,  which  is  expressed  in  language 
and  defined  by  its  constituent  elements  or  characteristics,  is  the 
generalized  product  of  the  philosophical  consciousness.  A  self 
is  one  of  the  individual  agents  or  egos,  which,  so  to  speak,  is  like 
every  other,  in  those  common  characteristics  or  powers  which 
make  them  alike.  It  is,  however,  an  ego  stripped  of  its  individu- 
ality by  the  process  of  abstraction,  and  considered  only  in  those 
attributes  and  qualities  which  it  has  in  common  with  others. 
The  natural  consciousness  must  begin  with  the  apprehension  of 
the  ego,  as  the  condition  of  knowing  a  single  mental  state.  It 
cannot  connect  one  state  with  another  except  by  means  of  this 
identical  ego.  We  begin  with  the  natural  consciousness  of  the 
individual  ego,  and  end  with  the  philosophical  concept  of  the  self; 
i.  e.,  with  its  nature  and  capacities  as  developed  to  the  reflective 
consciousness. 

§  72.  The  relations  of  the  natural  to  the  philo* 

Office  of  Ian-  .    .  i         r>  n  •    ,     i 

guage  in  re-  sophic  consciousness  cannot  be  fully  appreciated, 
unless  we  advert  to  the  office  of  language  with  respect 
to  each.  Language  is  of  essential  aid  in  giving  precision  and 
permanence  to  the  observations  and  results  of  the  reflective  con- 
sciousness.  The  subject-matter,  as  we  have  seen,  is  fleeting.  It 
endures  but  for  an  instant.  The  state  which  we  observe  and 
record  no  sooner  appears,  than  it  is  gone.  But  we  can  give  it 
outward  form  and  definite  shape  by  embodying  it  in  words 
and  expressing  it  in  speech.  The  frequent  use  of  the  word, 
makes  familiar  the  state  and  the  discerned  relations  of  which  it 


§  72.    THE  EEFLECTIVE,  OK  PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSCIOUSNESS.     85 

is  both  the  symbol  and  the  record.  The  thought,  however 
evanescent,  is  held  before  the  mind  for  the  purposes  of  com- 
parison and  philosophy,  when  the  word  is  often  sounded  to  the 
ear  or  pictured  before  the  eye.  Within  the  sharply-cut  outlines 
of  language,  psychical  objects  are  so  presented  that  we  can  avoid 
a  crowded,  feeble,  or  bewildered  gaze,  when  we  would  summon 
our  energies  to  compare,  classify,  and  explain. 

But  language  neither  creates  phenomena  nor  furnishes  observa- 
tions. It  simply  records  both,  and  directs  and  stimulates  others 
to  repeat  like  efforts  of  thought,  each  for  himself.  To  attempt  to 
observe  without  language,  is  to  reject  the  aid  which  nature  fur- 
nishes to  our  hand,  and  to  the  use  of  which  it  prompts  us  by  an 
impulse  which  we  cannot  resist  if  we  would.  But  we  should 
ever  remember  that  language  is  only  an  aid,  and  that  the  ready 
use  of  it  either  by  ourselves  or  others  cannot  release  us  from 
the  obligation  to  think  and  observe,  to  consider  attentively 
and  reflectively  judge  the  states  of  our  own  souls,  to  reproduce 
and  study  which  the  words  of  others  simply  direct  and  aid  us. 
"We  ought  especially  to  guard  ourselves  against  the  liability  to 
be  imposed  on  by  the  use  of  a  refined  and  technical  terminology, 
or  the  exhibition  of  a  well-rounded  and  carefully-adjusted  system. 
Technical  language  is  essential  to  the  use  of  the  reflective  con- 
sciousness, but  it  is  not  nearly  so  certain  to  exhibit  the  facts 
just  as  they  are,  with  the  beliefs  and  relations  which  they  involve 
as  the  languags  of  the  natural  consciousness  or  the  utterances  of 
common  life. 

Indeed,  as  an  expression  of  psychological  facts  and 
a  touchstone  of  psychological  theories,  the  language   of  common  ml 

r>  ,.P     .      P  ,  ,11  sometimes  the 

oi  common  liie  is  tar  more  worthy  to  be  trusted  than  most  trust- 
the  language  of  the  schools.  It  is  the  outspeaking 
of  those  beliefs  and  feelings,  of  which  man  is  naturally  conscious 
and  which  he  therefore  spontaneously  expresses.  It  is  the  un- 
constrained embodiment  of  all  the  experiences  of  his  inner  self; 
the  subtle  robe  which  the  spirit  is  continually  weaving  for  its 
inner  processes.  Each  fold  and  adjustment  is  a  natural  and  ne- 
cessary product.  Not  one  is  assumed  for  a  purpose.  The  lan- 
guage of  the  people  is  free  from  all  those  Massing  influences 
which  are  incident  to  speculation,  by  reason  of  preconceived 
theories,  whether  these  are  fondly  cherished  by  their  originator, 


86  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §72. 

or  traditionally  accepted  from  revered  teachers;  whether 
adopted  or  defended  through  pride  of  opinion,  the  tenacity 
of  consistency,  or  the  heat  of  controversy.  It  is  expressed  in 
too  great  a  variety  of  forms,  and  under  circumstances  too  dissimi- 
lar to  admit  the  supposition  of  a  common  prejudice  or  a  common 
interest.  For  these  reasons  we  accept  the  common  discourse  of 
men  as  expressing  the  unbiassed  convictions  of  those  who  are 
competent  to  discern  and  decide  upon  the  truth. 

"  But  are  uncultivated  men  competent  to  understand  and  decide 
upon  such  truths  as  are  in  question  among  philosophers  ?  Let 
it  be  granted  that  their  language  expresses  their  own  judgments, 
and  that  these  judgments  are  worthy  to  be  trusted  as  far  as  they 
go.  But  do  they  reach  the  questions  and  distinctions  of  the 
schools  ?  Can  common  men  understand  these  questions  and  dis- 
tinctions ?  And  if  they  cannot  understand  their  import,  how  can 
they  decide  upon  their  validity  or  their  truth  ?"  These  inquiries 
are  often  urged, in  the  way  of  exception  and  reply  to  this  view 
of  the  importance  and  authority  of  the  language  of  common  life. 
The  answer  is  obvious,  and  ought,  as  it  seems  to  us,  to  be  decisive. 
The  facts  which  the  philosopher  seeks  to  discover  are  the  facts 
or  phenomena  which  are  common  to  all  men,  and  of  which  all 
men  are  actually  conscious.  They  are  not  the  phenomena  which 
are  experienced  exclusively  by  philosophers,  but  those  which  are 
co-extensive  with  the  experience  of  the  human  race.  What  all 
men  experience  when  they  know  or  feel,  they  will  be  likely  to 
express  in  language;  for  they  cannot  know  or  feel,  without 
knowing  that  they  know  and  feel.  So  far,  then,  as  they  attend 
to  these  processes,  and  express  in  language  what  they  discern, 
they  are  likely  to  express  the  real  facts  which  consciousness  dis- 
cerns ;  and  these  are  the  very  facts  which  the  philosopher  desires 
to  know. 

To  detect  and  correct  the  mistakes  of  philosophy,  the  un- 
biassed -and  unreflecting  language  of  common  life  is  often  one  of 
the  most  efficient  instrumentalities.  The  questions  are  often 
grave  and  difficult.  What  are  the  elementary  facts  of  human 
experience  ?  What  does  analysis  show  to  be  the  real  and  the  ulti- 
mate elements  in  our  knowing  and  feeling  ?  To  answer  questions 
like  these,  there  is  no  readier  and  surer  expedient  than  to  ask, 
How  do  men  express  themselves  all  the  world  over,  when  they 


§  73.     THE  REFLECTIVE,  OR  PHILOSOPHICAL   CONSCIOUSNESS.    87 

have  no  theory  to  maintain  and  no  points  to  carry  ?  What  are 
the  unthinking  utterances  of  common  men  ?  Language  we  say  is 
thought  made  visible.  But  thought  is  belief  that  something  is 
true.  The  language  of  common  life  is,  then,  the  beliefs  of  un- 
biassed men  made  visible,  concerning  points  in  regard  to  which 
we  simply  desire  to  ascertain  the  testimony  of  their  unbiassed 
consciousness. 

§  73.  The  actions  of  men  are  also  of  great  im- 
portance in  ascertaining  what  are  the  real  beliefs  of  mhenaCa!soS  an 
men.  Their  actions  speak  louder  than  their  words,  o?tPr°uth.nt te3t 
When  the  actions  of  men  can  only  be  explained  on 
the  supposition  that  they  are  conscious  of  certain  knowledges  or 
believe  certain  facts  which  they  may  deny  in  their  philosophical 
speculations,  we  conclude  that  their  philosophy  is  defective  or 
wrong.  We  appeal  from  the  propositions  and  reasonings  of  the 
reflective  consciousness,  to  those  actual  beliefs  of  the  natural  con- 
sciousness which  their  actions  demonstrate  that  they  hold. 
When  men  act  persistently  and  habitually  as  if  they  believed 
certain  facts  were  true,  we  cannot  doubt  that  they  do  believe 
them,  however  they  may  seek  to  persuade  themselves  or  others  to 
the  contrary. 

These  thoughts  suggest  the  truth,  which  ought  ever  to  be  kept 
in  mind  and  applied,  that  the  teacher  of  psychology  must  appeal 
for  the  truth  of  his  assertions  to  the  consciousness  of  the  learner. 
He  can  communicate  nothing  upon  authority.  His  duty  is  to 
ascertain  and  classify  and  interpret  the  phenomena  of  his  own 
soul,  and  to  set  forth  the  processes  and  the  results  in  a  manner 
so  clear  and  so  self-evidencing  that  his  pupils  will  be  enabled  to 
consult  their  own  consciousness  as  he  proceeds,  and  to  find  in  it  a 
confirmation  of  all  which  he  propounds.  Whatever  is  asserted 
by  the  teacher  or  guide,  should  be  constantly  met  with  the  in- 
quiry, Is  this  confirmed  by  my  experience,  or  rendered  probable 
by  the  analogous  facts  which  this  experience  furnishes  ?  The 
testimony  of  others,  and  the  authority  of  their  opinions,  should 
influence  us  greatly,  not  to  change  our  opinions  against  the 
evidence  of  consciousness,  but  to  revise  these  opinions  with  care, 
and  often  to  suspect  the  exactness  or  the  candor  of  our  own  ob« 
servations,  whenever  the  weight  of  authority  is  against  out 


88  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §74 

convictions.     But  in  psychology,  simple  authority  has  no  weight 
against  the  final  decision  of  consciousness  itself. 

§  74.  To  reach  this  decision,  two  conditions  ara 
reach?nglonth°ef  necessary :  First,  that  we  fully  understand  the  ques- 
tions  which  we  are  to  decide,  in  their  entire  import 
and  all  the  relations  which  they  involve ;  and  second, 
that  we  patiently  and  candidly  use  all  the  appliances  and  tests 
which  are  at  hand  to  determine  the  answer.  The  greatest  practi- 
cal difficulty  in  settling  questions  in  psychology  arises  from  the 
circumstance  that  the  student  does  not,  first  and  foremost,  make 
himself  familiarly  acquainted  with  the  questions  which  are  to  be 
decided.  He  too  often  assumes  that  he  fully  understands  what 
he  has  only  imperfectly  mastered.  Or  if  he  apprehends  the 
point  in  question  for  a  moment,  he  fails  to  make  it  so  familiar  as 
is  necessary  in  order  to  view  it  in  all  its  relations,  and  to  decide 
with  a  full  and  distinct  appreciation  of  its  entire  import.  Men  are 
reluctant  to  bestow  this  preliminary  reflection,  because  they  think 
that  they  are  already  fully  acquainted  with  the  question  in  dis- 
cussion, and  the  terms  and  distinctions  which  it  involves. 

All  men  know  something  about  their  own  souls,  and  are  able 
to  pronounce  with  confidence  upon  many  questions  that  are  in 
controversy.  They  therefore  conclude  that  they  understand  every 
question  as  soon  as  it  is  propounded,  and  are  often  in  haste  to 
decide,  before  they  have  fairly  ascertained  what  the  question  is. 
Hence  the  misunderstandings  and  disputes  between  men  who  are 
apparently  in  earnest  to  discover  the  truth;  hence  the  warmth 
with  which  each  disputant  maintains  his  opinion,  and  the  obsti- 
nacy with  which  he  defends  it  against  attack.  Each  man  is 
quite  certain  that  what  he  has  in  mind  is  true ;  but  is  he  equally 
sure  that  his  antagonist  and  himself  have  the  same  thing  in 
mind?  or  that  either  has  all  and  no  more  in  mind  than  is 
properly  expressed  by  the  terms?  All  men  know  something 
about  psychology,  therefore  many  men  decide  upon  any  question 
which  comes  before  them  before  they  have  been  careful  to  learn 
what  its  import  is.  All  men  are  theologians  and  metaphysi- 
cians by  nature ;  therefore  they  conclude  that  there  is  no  question 
in  theology  or  philosophy  which  they  are  not  at  once  competent 
to  decide.  They  hastily  and  confidently  pronounce  upon  the  prob- 


§  75.     THE  REFLECTIVE,  OR  PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSCIOUSNESS.     89 

lem  before  they  are  fully  possessed  of  the  terms,  the  data,  or  the 
means  of  solving  it. 

§  75.   These  considerations  explain  in  part  the 
apparent  paradox  which  is  presented  in  the  claim, 
on  the  one  side,  that  the  facts  of  consciousness  are 
the  most  certain  of  all  facts,   and  in  the  notorious 
fact,  on  the  other,  that  many  of  the  simplest  and  most  fundamental 
principles  in  psychology  are  yet  undecided,  while  its  philosophical 
theories  are  endless  themes  for  never-settled  controversy. 

The  claim  is  a  just  one.  The  facts  of  consciousness  are  the 
most  certain  of  all  facts.  The  objects  which  consciousness  pre- 
sents are,  if  possible,  more  real  and  better  attested  than  the  objects 
of  sense.  We  can  question  whether  the  eye  and  the  ear  do  not 
deceive  us ;  but  we  cannot  doubt  whether  we  perform  the  acts 
of  seeing  and  hearing.  We  may  question  whether  these  objects 
are  what  they  seem  to  be,  but  not  whether  certain  psychical  acts 
are  in  reality  performed.  We  may  doubt  whether  this  or  that 
object  be  a  reality  or  a  phantasm,  but  we  cannot  doubt  that  we 
doubt.  Nothing  in  the  universe  is  so  certain,  and  deserves  so 
well  to  be  trusted,  as  the  psychical  phenomena  of  which  each 
man  is  conscious. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  fact  adduced  in  objection  cannot  be 
disputed.  Psychology  is  unsettled,  and  every  treatise  which 
professes  to  give  the  facts  of  the  soul  in  a  scientific  form,  abounds 
in  criticisms  of  theories  that  are  still  adhered  to,  and  that  are 
maintained  by  eminent  writers.  How  can  this  fact  be  recon- 
ciled with  the  claims  to  superior  clearness  and  certainty  that  are 
asserted  for  the  facts  of  consciousness  ? 

The  positions  which  we  have  laid  down  in  respect  to  the  rela- 
tions of  the  natural  to  the  reflective  consciousness,  enable  us  to 
reconcile  this  apparent  inconsistency.  First,  the  truth  deserves 
attention,  that  there  is  as  much  vagueness  and  dispute  in  respect 
to  the  less  obvious  conceptions  and  relations  of  material  objects, 
as  in  respect  to  the  more  recondite  relations  of  psychical  phe- 
nomena. The  obvious  facts  and  relations  of  matter  are  accepted 
without  controversy,  and  are  described  in  popular  language. 
Those  which  are  less  obvious,  or  which  involve  nice  observation, 
careful  discrimination,  or  some  speculative  inference,  are  quite 
as  much  in  controversy  as  are  the  obvious  phenomena  of  the 


90  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  76. 

soul  when  these  are  subjected  to  philosophical  elaboration.  The 
metaphysics  of  mathematics,  of  physics,  of  chemistry,  are  as 
unsettled  as  the  metaphysics  of  psychical  facts.  It  is  because 
psychology  always  resolves  itself  into  metaphysics,  that  psychology 
always  rushes  into  controversy. 

Moreover,  it  not  only  concerns  itself  with  its  own  metaphysics—- 
those which  are  appropriate  to  its  own  facts — but  it  shoulders  the 
metaphysics  of  all  the  material  sciences,  and  transfers  to  its  own 
arena  the  smoke  and  dust  that  properly  belong  to  the  doubtful 
questions  in  other  fields,  and  therefore  incurs  the  special  reproach 
to  which  we  have  alluded.  One  reason  why  psychology  is 
always  vague  and  unsettled,  is  that  it  attempts  more  than  the 
physical  sciences,  going  more  deeply  than  they  into  the  philoso- 
phy of  its  appropriate  facts.  It  is  also  true  that  it  is  not  so  easy 
to  shape  our  philosophy  to  our  facts,  nor  to  test  our  philosophy 
by  our  facts,  in  the  psychical  as  in  the  physical  sciences.  This 
leads  us  to  notice  the  peculiar  difficulties  which  the  student  of 
psychology  must  expect  to  encounter. 

They  are  the  following  : 

§  76.  First :  The  objects  of  contemplation  are  not, 
rawest  thS"  as  in  the  material  world,  permanent  objects,  to  which 
study  of  the  ^  mind  can  come  and  g0j  go  ^  to  bestow  repeated 

observations,  till  every  feature  and  relation  has  been 
carefully  and  minutely  examined.  In  the  science  of  the  soul, 
the  objects — i.  e.,  the  phenomena,  cease  to  be,  while  consciousness 
surveys  them.  The  soul  has  at  its  command  only  a  given  quantity 
of  energy,  which  it  must  divide  between  each  direct  activity  and 
the  consciousness  which  accompanies  it.  The  energy  employed 
in  knowing  or  feeling,  i.  e.,  in  producing  the  material  for  the  in- 
spection of  consciousness,  must  consequently  be  withdrawn  from 
the  activity  of  inspection ;  any  special  effort  to  attend  to  our  pro- 
cesses involves  a  corresponding  weakening  of  the  activity  to 
which  we  summon  ourselves  to  attend.  Material  objects  become 
more  vivid  and  distinct  the  more  keenly  the  attention  is  fixed 
upon  them ;  but  the  objects  of  consciousness  are  dissipated  before 
the  concentrated  gaze  which  would  master  their  secrets.  The 
repeated  creation  of  a  similar  object  for  the  subsequent  applica- 
tion of  consciousness  is  an  imperfect  substitute  for  the  continued 
examination  of  the  same  object. 


§  76.   THE  REFLECTIVE,  OR  PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSCIOUSNESS.       91 

Second :  Two  observers,  and,  if  need  be,  twenty,  or  twenty 
thousand,  can  examine  and  reexamine  the  same  material  object. 
But  the  objects  of  the  soul  can  be  surveyed  by  a  single  observer 
for  a  single  instant  only.  If  many  observers  agree  to  examine 
in  order  to  analyze  an  object  which  they  conceive  to  be  the  same, 
it  is  sometimes  difficult  for  them  to  be  entirely  sure  that  the 
objects  before  their  minds  are  identical  in  fact. 

Third  :  The  testimony  or  report  which  one  observer  brings  from 
nis  own  examination,  avails  little  as  a  substitute  for  personal 
inspection  by  the  student  himself.  Should  the  latter  even  confide 
entirely  in  the  competence  and  the  candor  of  another  party,  he 
needs  to  observe  for  himself  in  order  to  be  sure  of  the  identity 
of  the  object  concerning  which  he  accepts  the  testimony  of 
another  witness  than  himself. 

Fourth :  Objects  of  sense  are  clearly  distinguished  from  and 
set  over  against  the  soul  that  observes  them.  In  the  very  act  of 
observation  the  soul  separates  them  from  itself.  Objects  of  the 
soul  are  known  not  to  be  severed  in  fact  from  the  soul  which  ob- 
serves. For  the  soul  attentively  to  view  its  own  states  as  objects 
to  itself,  there  is  required  a  special  and  constrained  effort.  "  The 
understanding,"  says  Locke,  "  like  the  eye,  while  it  makes  us  see 
and  perceive  all  other  things,  takes  no  notice  of  itself;  and  it  re- 
quires art  and  pains  to  set  it  at  a  distance,  and  make  it  its  own 
object." 

Fifth:.  The  act  of  reflection,  or  second-thinking,  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  examining  the  nature  of  any  act  or  state  already  expe- 
rienced, is  especially  artificial,  and  against  nature,  for  the  reason 
that  men  usually  act  for  some  direct  motive  of  use,  enjoyment,  or 
duty,  and,  in  thus  acting,  their  look  must  necessarily  be  outward 
and  objective.  It  is  necessary,  if  men  would  act  with  interest 
and  energy,  that  their  feelings  be  strongly  aroused  by  some  existing 
object.  But  to  reproduce  the  act  a  second  time,  or  its  pale  reflec- 
tion, for  the  sole  purpose  of  seeing  of  what  sort  or  nature  it  is,  is 
not  natural,  because  most  men  are  not  greatly  interested  thoroughly 
and  scientifically  to  know  what  their  actions  are.  Or,  if  they 
arc  interested  in  this  as  as  an  end,  yet  the  reproduction,  and  the 
continuation  through  successive  reproductions  of  an  act  or  state, 
for  the  mere  object  of  examining  its  nature,  is  embarrassed  by 
the  difficulty  of  reproducing  it  without  the  excitement  of  itg 


92  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  76. 

original  motive.  We  perceive,  remember,  and  imagine, — we  hope 
and  fear,  choose  and  reject,  naturally  and  readily  enough,  when 
the  objects  arouse  and  excite  us ;  but  to  perceive  and  re-perceive, 
to  hope  and  fear  again  and  again,  simply  that  we  may  know 
more  exactly  how  it  seems  or  what  it  is  to  perform  or  experience 
these  states,  are,  at  best,  forced  and  unnatural  efforts.  Nothing 
but  the  deepest  convictions  of  the  dignity  and  value  of  the  results, 
in  the  acquisition  of  intellectual  discipline  and  the  advancement 
of  psychological  science,  can  impel  to  the  earnest  undertaking 
of  such  efforts,  and  the  patient  prosecution  of  them  to  a  successful 
issue. 

Sixth :  Material  objects  invite  to  an  analysis  by  their  obtrusive 
likenesses  and  differences.  The  phenomena  of  the  soul  do  not 
present  such  obvious  occasions  for  discernment.  Material  objects 
as  it  were,  indicate  by  dividing  lines,  by  intersecting  seams,  by 
salient  and  projecting  points,  the  sections  into  which  they  readily 
divide  themselves  under  the  eye  of  analysis.  Indeed,  Nature  herself 
is  continually  separating  and  combining  these  objects  before  our 
eyes,  changing  color  and  form,  disintegrating  and  throwing  apart 
materials  mechanically  united,  as  when  the  frost  breaks  up  and 
rolls  out  the  different  ingredients  of  a  rock ;  or  she  decomposes  the 
ingredients  chemically  united,  as  when,  by  fermentation  or  solvents, 
gases  and  precipitates  are  evolved.  The  so-called  five  senses  so 
soon  as  they  are  applied  together  or  in  succession  to  any  object, 
at  once  suggest  five  sets  of  qualities  or  attributes,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  ever  recurring  relations  of  extension  and  number. 

To  the  analysis  of  the  phenomena  of  the  soul  there  are  no  such 
forward  promptings  of  nature.  A  psychical  state,  when  viewed 
by  consciousness,  does  not  suggest  diverse  attributes  or  relations. 
To  bring  these  to  light,  it  must  be  brought  into  comparison  with 
states  like  and  unlike  itself.  These  must  be  recalled  by  memory, 
and  vividly  reproduced  to  the  imagination.  One  state  must  be 
artificially  confronted  with  another,  for  the  sake  of  evolving  some 
common  points  of  likeness  or  contrast. 

All  these  circumstances  combined  explain  the  inherent  difficul- 
ties of  philosophical  self-observation,  and  the  slow  progress  and 
uncertain  conquests  of  the  science  of  the  soul  in  contrast  with  the 
rapid  advances  and  the  certain  results  of  the  sciences  of  mat- 
ter. The  history  of  psychology,  attests  that  its  progress  though 


§  77.  SENSE-PERCEPTIOX.  93 

slow  is  real,  and  that  its  acquisitions,  though  often  disputed,  are 
more  and  more  assured. 


CHAPTER  III. 

SENSE-PERCEPTION  I   THE   CONDITIONS   AND  THE  PROCESS. 

§  77.  From  consciousness,  the  faculty  or  form  of 
presentative  knowledge  which  is  concerned  with  the 
objects  of  spirit  and  their  relations,  we  proceed  to 
the  second,  which  is  employed  upon  the  objects  and 
relations  of  matter.  We  define  sense-perception  as  that  power 
of  the  intellect  by  which  it  gains  the  knowledge  of  material 
objects.  It  is  also  called  sensible  perception,  or  simply,  percep* 
tion.  We  apply  these  terms  to  the  power,  the  act,  and  even 
to  the  object.  Thus  we  say,  Man  is  endowed  with  percep- 
tion ;  i.  e.,  with  the  power  to  perceive.  We  say,  My  perception 
of  the  color  or  sound  was  clear  and  vivid — describing  the  act  of 
perceiving.  We  also  ask,  Do  you  recall  certain  perceptions,  as 
of  color  or  form  ? — emphasizing  the  object. 

The  terms  to  perceive  and  perception,  are  applied  freely  to 
other  acts  and  objects  of  knowledge  besides  those  which  require 
the  agency  of  the  senses.  We  are  said  to  perceive  mathematical 
distinctions,  the  drift  and  force  of  reasoning,  the  design  of  a 
machine,  and  the  purpose  of  an  antagonist.  But  perception,  in 
the  technical  sense,  is  appropriated  to  the  knowledge  of  material 
objects.  This  knowledge  is  acquired  by  means  of  the  senses, 
and  hence,  we  call  it  sensible  perception,  or,  more  briefly,  sense- 
perception. 

Sense-percepfion  is  called  into  activity  first  of  ^  ^ 
all  the  powers  of  the  intellect.  It  is  educated  and  earliest  of  ait 

«.  11         i         -i  i    •  T  .     -,     the    powers. 

hilly  developed  in  our  earliest   years,  at  a    period 
and  by  processes  which  we  cannot  distinctly  recall  to 

memory.  Seems  to  Lctiie 

But  though  this  power  is  developed  so  early  and   most  familiar- 

J  Isnotthetnos* 

exercised  so  constantly,  and,  at  first  view,  seems  so   easily  under- 
easy  to  be  understood  ;  it  is  far  from  easy  to  analyze 


94  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  77. 

its  elements,  or  to  explain  its  processes.  To  understand  sense- 
perception,  we  must  study  the  body  as  well  as  the  mind ;  we  must 
trace  out,  and,  as  it  were,  unravel  the  subtle  connections  by 
which  the  two  are  united  ;  we  must  show  how  far  the  one  is 
dependent  on  the  other  ;  what  each  furnishes  towards  the  result, 
and  what  are  the  separable  acts  or  processes  in  the  action  of 
each.  For  these  and  other  reasons,  it  naturally  receives  the 
earliest  attention  in  the  study  of  the  intellectual  powers.  The 
processes  of  sense-perception  seem  to  most  men  to  be  the  most 
familiar  and  the  best  understood  of  all  their  intellectual  acts. 
Some  of  the  senses  are  all  the  while  in  action.  Sense-perceptions 
are  present  in  our  loftiest  speculations  and  our  most  refined  rea- 
sonings. The  world  of  sense  holds  man  to  its  realities  in  the 
most  ethereal  of  his  flights,  and  never  ceases  to  be  the  dark  or 
radiant  background  to  the  most  vivid  pictures  of  his  fancy. 
Sensations  visit  man  in  sleep.  They  disturb  or  soothe  his  repose. 
They  haunt  him  in  his  very  dreams.  With  sensations  and  sense- 
perceptions  man  begins  and  ends  his  earthly  existence. 

The  first  requisite  to  a  correct  theory  of  percep- 
fron/Tther6  tion  is  to  separate  the  act  from  every  other  with 
which  it  is  likely  to  be  confounded.  It  is  not  un- 
natural to  suppose  that  much,  if  not  all,  of  the  knowledge  we 
have  of  material  objects,  is  gained  by  this  process  alone.  A 
more  careful  examination  shows  that  we  gain  very  much  of  our 
knowledge  of  these  objects  by  the  exercise  of  the  other  and 
higher  intellectual  powers. 

For  example,  we  take  an  orange :  and  inquire  first 
*°lee  °f  what  acts  of  knowledge  in  respect  to  it  are  not  acts 
of  perception  ;  and  second,  what  knowledge  is  pro- 
perly ascribed  to  this  power.  We  first  look  at  the 
orange,  and  immediately  supply  the  half  which  we  do  not  see — 
the  portion  of  the  sphere  which  is  hi-hbn.  We  know,  or  believe, 
the  orange  to  bs  spherical.  The  part  which  we  supply  we  do 
not  perceive  by  the  eye  of  the  body ;  we  only  image  it  to  the 
"  mind's  eye."  This  is  an  act  of  imagination  or  representation, 
but  not  an  act  of  perception.  We  can  separate  its  form,  as  spheri- 
cal, from  all  material  reality,  and  can  construct  the  abstract  or 
mathematical  sphere  for  the  mind  to  consider  and  analyze.  We 
can  reflect  on  its  properties  and  its  relations  to  the  circle  by  the 


§  77.  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  95 

revolution  of  which  it  is  conceived  to  be  produced.  The  dis- 
cernment of  the  mathematical  forms,  properties  and  relations, 
which  may  be  applied  to  the  orange  is  not  perception.  We 
know,  or  believe,  that  its  sensible  qualities,  as  of  taste,  color, 
feeling,  smell,  are  inherent  in  or  belong  to  the  something  which 
we  call  their  substance.  The  knowledge  of  the  orange  as  sub- 
stance and  qualities  is  not  necessarily  involved  in  perception. 
We  observe  that  other  objects  possess  qualities  like  some  of  those 
which  belong  to  the  orange  —  as  yellow,  round,  etc.  —  and  are 
therefore  properly  classed  with  and  receive  tho  same  appella- 
tion. But  classification  and  naming  are  not  included  in  percep- 
tion. We  can  know  that  this  fruit  has  been  produced  by  the 
powers  and  under  the  laws  of  vegetable  life  ;  knowledge  of  this 
sort  is  not  essential  to  perception.  We  can  know,  by  reasoning, 
that  it  will  produce  certain  effects  if  eaten,  or  used  in  illness  ; 
but  this  we  do  not  know  by  simple  perception.  We  can  go  still 
further,  and  know,  or  certainly  believe,  that  it  is  adapted  to  and 
was  designed  for  certain  uses  or  ends  ;  as  to  minister  comfort  and 
afford  nutriment  to  man.  The  knowledge  of  the  uses  and  designs 
of  the  orange  is  not  included  in  sense-perception. 

It  is    evident  that  all   these   acts  of  knowledge   T 

o       What  are  acts 

may  be  performed  with  respect  to  the  orange,  of  sense-per- 
and  that  none  of  them  are  acts  of  simple  sense-per- 
ception. It  is  equally  clear  that  they  presuppose  such  acts  as 
their  preliminary  conditions;  so  that,  if  we  did  not  already  know 
something  of  the  orange  by  certain  antecedent  acts,  we  could 
never  know  the  orange  by  these  higher  methods.  This  prelimi- 
nary knowledge  remains  to  be  considered,  after  these  higher 
processes  have  been  eliminated. 

What  is  the  knowledge  gained  by  these  preliminary 
acts  ?  We  answer  at  once,  It  is  the  knowlede  which      - 


is  necessarily  involved  in  the  use  of  the  organs  of  J.'J  «e»se-Per- 
sense  Let  us  try  these  organs  upon  the  orange,  one 
by  one  ;  and  first  the  sense  of  smell,  suspending  the  action  of 
every  other.  We  perceive  a  grateful  odor,  and  that  is  all  we 
know  by  this  means.  Were  we  limited  to  the  agency  of  smell, 
this  is  all  the  knowledge  that  the  orange  would  ever  give 
us.  We  open  the  ear,  and  the  orange  falls,  or  is  struck.  We 
hear  the  sound  fr^m  the  fall  or  the  stroke,  and  this  is  all  that 


96  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §77, 

we  know  by  the  eaiv  We  taste  the  orange.  At  once  two  kinds 
of  knowledge  are  given,  as  two  senses  awake  to  action — the  senses 
of  taste  and  of  touch.  Could  we  separate  the  touch  from  the 
taste,  we  should  by  taste  perceive  only  the  flavor  of  the  orange. 

We  grasp  it  with  the  hand,  first  lightly,  so  as  only  to  be  aware 
of  its  presence,  then  with  greater  force  of  pressure,  so  as  to  en- 
counter resistance.  We  pass  the  hand  over  the  surface,  and  per- 
ceive that  it  is  smooth  or  rough.  We  come  to  its  limits ;  for  the 
hand  is  in  contact  with  another  something.  Through  the  hand 
we  can  perceive  the  object  as  impinging  and  resisting,  as  smooth 
or  rough,  as  having  extension  and  form. 

Last  of  all,  we  open  the  eye.  A  surface  of  color  presents 
itself,  separated  from  other  shaded  and  colored  surfaces  by  an  en- 
circling ring.  The  color  is  shaded  by  the  most  delicate  transi- 
tions, deepening  here,  almost  vanishing  there.  As  the  orange  is 
near  or  remote,  the  limiting  or  bounding  circle  widens  or  is  con- 
tracted, and  the  colors  are  feeble  or  bright.  Tli3  eye  gives 
colored  extension,  form,  contrasts,  and  relative  size.  Were  we  all 
eye,  we  should  perceive  nothing  more. 

In  connection  with  the  use  of  these  organs,  we  perceive  or  are 
aware  of  certain  changing  affections  that  attend  upon  the 
varying  condition  of  the  muscles  which  direct  and  move  the  sense- 
organs.  We  know  the  muscles  as  tense  and  as  relaxed :  we 
apprehend  the  affaction  that  accompanies  the  grasp  that  is  firm 
and  that  which  is  relaxed  ;  the  sensation  that  attends  the  stretch- 
ing forth  and  the  withdrawment  of  the  hand.  Certain  vital  and 
muscular  affections  are  known  in  connection  with  the  sense-per- 
ceptions. 

These  various  knowledges,  or  percepts,  obtained  by  these 
several  means,  we  combine  into  one  separate  and  single  object, 
occupying  a  limited  portion  of  space.  The  process  of  percep- 
tion is  not  complete  till  we  have  attained  the  knowledge  of  single 
objects,  made  up  by  the  mind  of  separate  parts  corresponding  to 
the  several  senses,  and  having  definite  relations  of  form  and 
magnitude.  Such  an  object  we  call  a  material  tiling.  When  we 
have  gained  such  a  knowledge  of  the  object  as  enables  us  to 
recall  and  otherwise  use  it  as  a  mental  r?presentation  or  image, 
we  have  completed  all  that  is  essential  to  the  process. 

Much  of  our  knowledge  of  sense-objects  is  acquired  indirectly. 


§  78.  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  97 

We  make  the  knowledge  received  by  one  sense  a  substitute  for 
that  which  we  might  receive  by  another.  Thus,  by  the  color  of 
the  orange  we  know  its  taste ;  by  its  appearance  to  the  eye,  its 
feeling  to  the  hand — whether  it  is  hard  or  soft,  whether  it  i& 
green  or  ripe.  We  know  an  object  to  be  near,  by  the  distinct- 
ness or  sharpness  of  its  outline  and  the  vividness  of  its  color. 
We  know  it  is  remote  by  the  dimness  of  the  line  and  the  duliiess 
of  the  color.  We  determine  its  distance  by  its  size,  and  its  size 
by  its  distance.  Knowledge  obtained  by  such  processes  is  called 
acquired  perception.  The  knowledge  of  sense  objects  under  the 
relations  of  substance  and  qualities  involves  the  application  of 
still  higher  powers  and  relations. 

This  general  outline  or  preliminary  analysis  of 

J  J  Results  of  ana- 

sense-perception  has  shown  that    it  is  dependent  on  lysis.  E»ghttop- 

.     .  ics  proposed. 

corporeal  organs  or  instruments ;  that  it  is  attended 
by  special  sensations,  each  differing  in  quality  and  intensity  ac- 
cording to  the  constitution  and  condition  of  its  appropriate 
organ  ;  that  in  connection  with  each  of  these  sensations  we  gain  a 
positive  knowledge  of  material  objects;  that  we  unite  these 
knowledges,  so  as  to  gain  and  retain  perceptions  of  separate 
material  things,  and  that  we  gain  this  knowledge  of  things  both 
by  direct  observation  and  indirect  inference.  It  opens  for  us  the 
following  distinct  topics  of  inquiry : 

I.  The  Conditions  or  Media  of  Sense-Perception. — II.  The  Pro- 
cess of  Sense-Perception,  in  its  two  elements  of  Sensation  and  Per- 
ception.— III.  The  Classes  of  Sjnse-Perceptions. — IV.  Thb  Acquired 
Sense- Perceptions. — V.  The  Development  and  growth  of  Sense-Per- 
ception.— VI.  The  Products  of  Sense-Perception. — VII.  Activity  0} 
the  Soul  in  Sense-Perception. — VIII.  Theories  of  Sense-Perception. 

I,  The  conditions  or  media  of  sense-perception. 

§  78.    We   perceive   by  means   of  certain   bodily 
organs,  and  on  the  condition  that  these  organs  are 
3xc,'ited  by  their  appropriate  objects  or  stimuli,  and 
that  the  nervous  system  with  which  these  organs  are 
connected,  shares  in  this  excitation.     These  conditions  of  sense- 
perception  are  purely  physiological,  and  are  discovered  by  the 
senses.     Prominent  among  them   is  the  existence   of  a  material^ 
nervous,  and  sensor ial  organism. 


98  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  78. 

The  human  body  is  material  in  its  composition ;  i.  e.,  it  con- 
sists of  particles  of  matter  which  are  endowed  with  the  proper- 
ties, and  subject  to  the  laws  which  belong  to  matter  in  general, 
and  which  are  united  into  bones,  viscera,  etc.  It  is  also  an  or- 
ganism which  differs  from  a  machine,  in  that  each  of  its  separate 
portions  performs  certain  functions,  as  digestion,  secretion,  circula- 
tion, respiration,  each  of  which  is  peculiar,  and  appropriate  to  no 
other  organ.  This  function  is  essential  to  the  existence  and  action 
and  to  the  performance  of  the  special  function  of  every  other  organ  : 
while  all  must  act  together  in  order  to  further  or  render  possible 
the  special  action  of  each.  If  digestion  is  weakened  or  arrested, 
the  blood  ceases  to  move  and  the  lungs  to  expand,  or  both  these 
functions  are  irregularly  and  imperfectly  performed.  Death 
may  ensue,  i.  e.,  the  once  living  organism,  may  be  decomposed 
into  particles  of  unorganized  matter. 

In  this  living   organism  is   present  a  system   of 

The  nervous  .  &  .      r  . 

system.  The     organs,  consisting  of  the  brain,  the  ganglia,  and  the 

eensorium.  „..  „.  1-1 

nerves.  The  nerves  are  filaments  winch  terminate 
on  every  surface  and  at  every  extremity  of  the  body,  and  pene- 
trate every  portion,  even  the  hardest  bones.  They  are  interlaced 
with  one  another,  and  their  substance  is  occasionally  expanded 
into  large  knots  or  masses.  These  expansions  are  called 
ganglia,  and  serve  as  independent  centres  of  nervous  activity 
and  force.  The  nerves  increase  in  size  as  they  approach 
the  ganglia,  the  spinal  marrow,  and  the  brain.  By  means  of  the 
ganglia  and  the  spinal  marrow,  they  are  all  connected  with  the 
brain,  which  is  itself  a  larger  ganglion,  or  system  of  ganglia. 
This  system  of  nerves  performs  several  distinct  functions,  and 
for  each  of  these  functions  there  is  a  distinct  set  of  nerves.  If 
the  nerves  are  diseased,  single  organs  fail,  or  the  entire  body 
perishes.  If  the  spinal  marrow  is  injured  by  disease  or  violence, 
the  limbs  are  wholly  or  in  part  disabled.  If  the  brain  is  shocked 
by  concussion,  life  is  suspended  or  returns  no  more. 

The  function  of  the  nervous  system  with  which  we  are  specially 
concerned,  relates  to  sensation.  To  fit  the  nerves  for  this  func- 
tion, they  are  connected  with  various  organs,  the  most  noticeable 
of  which  are  the  eye,  the  ear,  the  nostril,  and  the  hand.  These 
organs  with  the  nerves  attached  as  capable  of  the  sentient  func- 
tions when  acting  in  a  living  organism,  are  known  by  the  col- 


§  78.  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  99 

lective  term,  the  sensorium,  or  sensory.  The  term  is  technical, 
and  is  appropriate  to  those  organs  and  nerves,  which  bear  some 
part  in  the  process  of  perception,  and  so  far  only  as  their  functions 
are  concerned  in  this  process. 

We  must  notice  another  function  of  the  nervous 

The    rettex 

system  which  is  intimately  connected  with  perception,  action  ot  the 
viz.,  their  capacity  for  reflex  action.  The  nervous  fila- 
ments which  proceed  from  the  external  and  other  organs  run 
side  by  side  in  pairs,  two  being  united  within  the  same  covering 
or  sheath,  and  connected  by  interwoven  fibres.  If  any  part  where 
they  terminate  is  irritated,  or  excited  in  any  way,  one  of  these 
filaments  conveys  the  notice  to  the  brain  or  ganglion,  and  the 
other  conveys  the  stimulus  back  to  the  place  where  the  impression 
or  sensation  occurred.  We  say  the  sensation  or  impression,  for 
it  is  by  no  means  essential  that  the.  soul  should  feel  pleasure  or 
pain,  or  in  any  way  be  aware  of  any  object.  Whatever  the 
excitement  may  be,  the  companion  nerve  responds  to  the  call 
of  its  associate,  and  contracts,  convulses,  or  appropriately  moves 
the  muscle  or  the  organ  which  is  aroused.  A  message  of  invita- 
tion or  warning  flashes  inward  along  one  of  these  mysterious 
filaments,  >the  afferent.  An  answer  is  sent  at  once  outward  by 
the  efferent  to  the  place  from  which  it  came,  and  the  answer  is 
obeyed.  This  may  be  done  without  the  intervention  or  the 
knowledge  of  the  soul.  The  nerves  arranged  for  this  special 
service  of  the  senses  and  of  motion  are  called  the  senso-motor, 
and  the  general  action  which  we  have  described  is  called  their 
reflex  action. 

The  nerves,  it  will  be  observed,  are  the  subjects  of  diverse  affec- 
tions or  phenomena.  First,  they  are  subject  to  mechanical  ac- 
tion and  change.  Like  other  filaments,  they  can  be  bruised,  rent, 
or  cut.  Second,  their  constituent  elements  suffer  chemical 
changes.  Third,  they  minister  to  the  healthy  or  unhealthy  ac- 
tion of  all  the  vital  and  sense-organs.  Fourth,  they  are  capable 
of  various  reflex  actions,  both  occasional,  in  response  to  casual 
excitements,  and  regular,  as  when  they  sustain  the  involuntary 
action  of  the  'leart,  lungs,  and  other  organs.  Fifth,  the  highest 
of  all,  when  a  sentient  soul  make?  this  organism  living,  they  are 
capable  of  a  special  aflfection  £>r  exciternent,  .which  ig  the  condition 
of  sensation  and 


100  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §79. 

The  first  and  essential  requisite  to  sense-perception  is  the  exist- 
ence of  the  sensorium  as  thus  defined. 

§  78  a.  The  second  requisite  to  sense-perception  is 

The   second      ,r  •  ,  7,7  /. 

Condition  is  an  tfie  existence  ana  the  presence  oj  appropriate  objects. 
tait0t  c  '  We  say  in  general,  there  must  be  visible  objects  in 
order  to  vision:  audible  objects  in  order  to  hearing: 
tangible  objects  in  order  to  touch.  In  other  language  we  say, 
objects,  to  be  perceived,  must  be  luminous,  sonorous,  resisting; 
or,  more  abstractly,  there  must  be  light,  sound,  and  hardness,  or 
there  cannot  be  vision,  hearing,  or  touch. 

One  apparent  exception  to  this  principle  occurs  in  the  case  of 
the  so-called  subjective  sensations  which  are  excited  by  stimu- 
lating the  nerves  by  peculiar  agents.  Thus  the  optic  nerve, 
under  electrical  applications,  may  be  so  excited  as  to  occasion 
flashes  of  light.  Sparks  are  perceived  from  a  blow  or  contusion. 
Slight  sensations  of  smell  and  of  taste,  also  a  ringing  or  whizzing 
in  the  ears,  are  occasioned  by  electrical  action.  Experiments  of 
this  kind  prove  that  the  sensation  depends  entirely  on  the  excite- 
ment of  a  part  of  the  sensory  to  a  given  species  of  activity,  and 
that  this  excitement  is  idiopathic,  or  limited  to  the  nerve  or 
nerves  concerned;  e  g.,  the  optic  nerve  alone  emits  light;  the 
acoustic  nerve,  sound,  etc.,  etc. 

§  79.  The  third  condition  of  sense-perception  is 
dition.irits(a£  the  action  of  the  object  upon  the  sensorium.  In  order 
Ben"o°rium?  to  receive  this  action,  the  external  organs  must  be  in 
a  normal  condition — e.g.,  the  eye,  the  ear,  the 
palate,  and  the  skin.  If  any  lesion  or  disease  occurs,  the  percep- 
tion is  irregular  or  impossible.  In  like  manner,  if  the  nerves  are 
diseased  or  destroyed,  the  perceptions  are  disturbed  or  prevented. 
Let  the  optic  nerve  be  injured,  and  the  vision  is  dimmed,  clouded, 
or  extinguished.  So  it  is  with  hearing,  with  touch,  with  smell, 
and  with  taste. 

It  may  be  asked,  how  do  we  know  that  these  three  requisites 
must  be  present  ?  We  reply,  Only  indirectly.  We  learn  it  by  in- 
ference. If  the  sensorium  no  longer  exists,  there  is  no  perception. 
If  the  object  is  withdrawn,  as  the  luminous  or  sonorous  matter, 
there  can  be  no  perception.  If  the  organ  or  the  nerve  is  destroyed, 
the  soul  dees  -  not  perceive.  ;We;  eoeelude  that  all  these  are  its 
essential  jptfdHiQtfs.  ~&nt'  that  thke  Conditions  are  not  the  acts 


§  80.  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  101 

themselves,  will  be  still  more  manifest  from  the  analysis  of  these 
acts.  We  proceed  next  10  : 

II.   The  process  of  sense-perception. 

§  80.  The  simplest  form  in  which  sense-perception  The  process  oi 
is  experienced  is  in  its  connection  with  a  single  organ 


It  is  psychical, 


of  sense.     The  states   or  acts  which  we  ordinarily  pj?st  form; 
call  sense-perceptions,  by  which  we  apprehend  the 
most  familiar  objects,  as  a  table,  a  chair,  a  horse,  or  a  dog,  are 
made  up  of  too  many  elements  to  allow  us  to  discern  the  precise 
character  of  the  elements  or  the  steps  of  the  process  itself.     It  is 
only  when  we  consider  a  single  act,  as  of  seeing  and  hearing,  and 
of  the  simplest  object,  as  a  single  color  or  sound,  that  we  are  in  a 
condition  to  determine  the  essential  nature  and  elements  of  the 
act  itself. 

The  most  general  assertion  which  we  make  is,  that 

.  .         ,         ,  ,     ,.      .         .       , 

sense-perception  is  clearly  and  distinctively  a  psy- 
chical  and  not  a  physiological  phenomenon.  We  are 
prepared,  by  our  previous  analysis,  to  distinguish  perception  from 
the  organic  instruments  and  conditions  that  are  essential  to  it. 
Neither  the  eye  nor  the  optic  nerve,  nor  the  image  formed  on  the 
retina,  nor  the  nervous  response  to  the  image  —  none  of  these,  nor 
all  of  them  together,  constitute  vision.  The  picture  may  be 
formed,  the  nerve  may  be  stimulated  to  reflex  activity,  so  as  to 
contract  the  iris  or  let  fall  the  eyelid,  and  yet  there  may  be  no 
sight.  If  a  hot  iron  is  applied  to  the  flesh,  and  the  soul  does  not 
feel  and  apprehend,  there  is  no  sense-perception.  It  may  disor- 
ganize and  destroy  the  flesh,  consuming  it  to  the  bone,  and  yet,  if 
the  soul  does  not  respond,  the  phenomenon  which  wa  seek  for  does 
not  occur.  In  order  to  this,  an  energy  must  be  aroused  from  the 
soul  itself.  Its  presence  and  its  nature  are  known  by  conscious- 
ness. Its  physical  conditions  are  observed  by  the  senses  and  traced 
out  by  physiological  analysis.  The  anatomist  separates  and  fol- 
lows the  one  class  of  phenomena  by  his  dissecting  knife,  interpret- 
ing the  functions  which  he  does  not  observe.  Consciousness  watches 
the  other,  notes  their  similarities  and  differences,  refers  them  to 
their  agent  and  records  their  relations  and  laws, 
Let  us,  then,  leave  these  physical  or  physiological 

...  ,  r.  i        '  Tt  *i 

conditions,  and  consult  consciousness  alone.     We  in-  oft 

f  •  ITTI          •  «  men 

quire  ot  consciousness,   What  is  the  psychical  act  or 


102  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  81. 

state?  She  replies,  It  is  a  process  complex  in  its  nature,  but  in- 
stantaneous in  time.  It  is  complex,  because  the  soul,  in  its  sin- 
gle act,  distinguishes  two  objects — its  own  condition  and 
some  material  reality :  one  of  these  is  subjective,  and  hence  is 
called  a  subject-object;  the  other  is  objective,  and  is  denominated  an 
object-object.  One  element  is  called  sensation,  or  sensation  proper; 
the  other  is  called  perception,  or  perception  proper.  The  one  of 
these  is  an  element  involving  feeling ;  the  other  is  intellectual, 
being  an  act  of  knowledge.  Each  requires  the  other.  Each  is 
the  attendant  of  the  other.  There  can  be  no  perception  without 
sensation,  nor  can  sensation  occur  without  perception. 

But  though  these  two  elements  coexist,  it  is  with 
-  unequal  energy.  The  one  activity  is  always  at  the 
expense  of  the  other.  If  sensation  is  intense,  percep- 
tion  is  feeble.  If  perception  is  energetic  and  absorb- 
ing, sensation  is  weak  and  scarcely  observed.  The 
operation  of  this  law  is  seen  in  the  several  senses,  and  in  the  dif- 
fering states  or  energies  of  single  and  separate  senses.  In  vision, 
as  compared  with  smell  and  hearing,  perception  prevails ;  while  in 
both  the  latter,  sensation  is  in  excess.  In  the  perception  of  bright 
and  stimulating  color,  as  contrasted  with  the  discernment  of  form 
and  outlines,  sensation  is  conspicuous  in  the  one,  and  perception 
in  the  other.  If  we  look  at  the  unclouded  sun  at  midday,  we 
cannot  perceive  distinctly,  by  reason  of  the  blinding  and  painful 
sensations  ;  if  its  disc  is  overcast,  or  a  darkened  glass  is  inter- 
posed, the  perception  is  more  distinct  and  easy,  by  the  repression 
of  the  sensations. 

§  81.   Sensation  proper,  or  the  sensational  element, 

Sensation  pro-  _,.  .        ,  -. 

per  pertains  to   comes  first  in  order.     This  does  not  occur  alone  or 

the  soul.  .         .         .         -,  'ii 

apart.  Pure  sensation  is  simply  an  ideal  or  imagi- 
nary experience.  Though  sensation  always  occurs  with  perception, 
it  may  be  clearly  distinguished  from  it.  Sensation,  thus  consi- 
dered, is 

A  subjective  experience  of  the  soul  as  animating  an  extended 
sensorium,  usually  more  or  less  pleasurable  or  painful,  and  always 
occasioned  by  some  excitement  of  the  organism.  This  definition  im- 
plies : — 

First  of  all,  that  sensation  pertains  properly  to  the  soul,  as  con- 
tra-distinguished from  material  things  or  corporeal  agents,  The 


§  82.  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  103 

sensation  of  touch  is  not  in  the  orange,  the  sensation  of  heat  is 
not  in  the  burning  flame,  but  both  are  experienced  by  the  sen- 
tient soul.  The  sensation  of  sweetness  is  not  in  the  sugar,  that 
of  sourness  is  not  in  tne  vinegar.  There  can  be  no  music  when 
orchestra  and  audience  are  both  stone-deaf.  As  all  sensations 
pertain  to  the  soul  which  experiences  them,  they  are  properly 
said  to  be  subjective. 

§  82.  Second,  the  sensations,  though  subjective  in 
the  sense  already  defined,  are  yet  experienced  by  the  enced  i>y  the 

.  soul  connected 

soul  as  connected  with  a  corporeal  organism,  and  are  with  an  organ- 
directly  distinguished  in  this  from  emotions  proper, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  from  perceptions  proper,  on  the  other.  The 
soul  has  a  subjective  experience  of  heat,  hardness,  sweetness, 
sourness,  etc.,  but  it  has  this  experience  as  an  agent  connected 
with  and  animating  an  extended  sensorium.  The  several  sensa- 
tions, though  like  the  purely  spiritual  emotions  in  being  agreea- 
ble, on  the  opposite,  are  unlike  them  in  being  felt  by  the  soul  as 
existing  in  a  peculiar  form  of  being  and  activity,  viz.,  that  of  cor- 
poreal sensibility.  That  which  feels  is  not  the  soul  as  pure  spirit, 
but  spirit  animating  an  organism. 

It  is  but  a  part  of  the  truth  which  Keid  utters,  when  he  says: 
"  This  sensation  [of  smell]  can  be  nothing  else  than  it  is  felt  to 
be.  Its  very  essence  consists  in  being  felt ;  and  when  it  is  not 
felt,  it  is  not.  There  is  no  difference  between  the  sensation,  and 
the  feeling  of  it ;  they  are  one  and  the  same  thing."  "  As  to  the 
sensations  and  feelings  that  are  agreeable  or  disagreeable,  they 
differ  much,  not  only  in  degree,  but  in  kind  and  dignity.  Some 
belong  to  the  animal  part  of  our  nature,  and  are  common  to  us 
with  the  brutes ;  others  belong  to  the  rational  and  moral  part. 
The  first  are  more  properly  called  sensations,  the  last,  feelings" 
[Essays,  Ititell.  Powers,  ii.  c.  16.) 

Berkeley,  Theory  of  Vision,  says  to  the  same  effect:  "The 
objects  intromitted  by  sight  would  seem  to  him  [a  man  born 
blind  ],  as  indeed  they  are,  no  other  than  a  new  set  of  thoughts 
or  sensations,  each  whereof  is  as  near  to  him  as  the  perceptions 
of  pain  and  pleasure,  or  the  most  inward  passions  of  the  soul." 

Reid  certainly  would  not  say  that  the  pain,  or  the  painful  sen- 
sation, which  is  occasioned  by  a  burn,  a  cut,  or  a  blow,  is  pre- 
cisely like  the  pain  which  is  occasioned  by  the  death  of  a  friend, 


104  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  83. 

the  loss  of  fortune,  or  the  failure  of  a  darling  project.  Both 
6hese  classes  of  states,  when  not  felt,  have  no  existence ;  they 
both  pertain  to  the  soul,  and  to  the  soul  only,  as  distinguished 
from  the  objects  which  occasion  them.  Both  are  alike  subjective,, 
Both  are  alike  in  being  disagreeable,  hence  both  are  called  pain- 
ful. But  one  is  experienced  by  the  soul  as  connected  with  an 
organism,  while  the  other  is  felt  in  the  soul  without  reference  to 
the  sensorium  at  all. 

Hamilton  on  the  other  hand  asserts,  "  It  may  appear,  not  a  paradox  merely, 
but  a  contradiction,  to  say,  that  the  organism  is  at  once  within  and  without  the 
mind;  is  at  once  subjective  and  objective;  is  at  once  ego  and  non-ego.  But  so 
it  is,  and  so  we  must  admit  it  to  be,  unless,  on  the  one  hand,  as  materialists,  wa 
identify  mind  with  matter,  or,  on  the  other,  as  idealists,  we  identify  matter  with 
mind.  The  organism,  as  animated,  as  sentient,  is  necessarily  ours;  and  its 
affections  are  only  felt  as  affections  of  the  indivisible  ego.  In  this  respect,  and 
to  this  extent,  our  organs  are  not  external  to  ourselves.  But  our  organism  is 
not  merely  a  sentient  subject,  it  is  at  the  same  time  an  extended,  figured,  divisi- 
ble, in  a  word,  a  material,  subject;  and  the  same  sensations  which  are  reduced 
to  unity  in  the  indivisibility  of  consciousness  are  in  the  divisible  organism 
recognized  as  plural  and  reciprocally  external,  and,  therefore,  as  expended, 
figured,  and  divided.  Such  is  the  fact:  but  how  the  immaterial  can  be  united 
with  matter,  how  the  unextended  can  apprehend  extension,  how  the  indivisible 
can  measure  the  divided, — this  is  the  mystery  of  mysteries  to  man." —  Work#  of 
Reid,  Note  D*  18  and  foot-note,  p.  880  (Cf.  35,  38,  39). 

§  83.  It  is  implied,  in  what  has  been  said,  that  all 
focalized^0118  sensations  are  experienced  with  a  more  or  less  distinct 
and  definite  relation  of  place  in  the  sensorium.  This 
relation  of  place  is  at  first  very  indefinitely  apprehended;  indeed, 
it  may  not  be  attended  to  at  all ;  but  there  must  be  furnished  the 
means  of  discerning  such  a  relation,  provided  the  attention  is  di- 
rected to  the  sensation.  It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  a  pain  in  the 
teeth  or  a  pain  in  the  head  should  not  be  known  as  apart  in  place 
from  a  pain  in  the  foot;  that  a  burn  in  the  foot  and  a  woun 
in  the  arm  should  not  give  directly  to  the  mind  the  apprehension 
of  a  different  place  for  each. 

When  it  is  asserted  that  every  sensation  gives  or  might  give 
relation  of  place,  it  is  not  intended  that  the  relations  of  plac 
involved  hi  and  given  by  the  direct  experience  of  an  original 
sensation  are  or  could   be  apprehended   so  completely  and  so 
definitely,  as  they  are  by  the  aid  of  experience  and  the  acquired 
perceptions ;  but  only  that  some  knowledge,  or  the  materials  for 
•uch  knowledge,  must  be  furnished  in  every  original  sensation. 


§  86.  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  105 

The  different  sensations  differ  in  respect  to  the  greater  or  less 
definiteness  of  the  part  or  place  of  the  sensorium  which  is 
affected.  Thus  a  sound  or  a  smell  is  far  less  distinctly  denned 
in  any  relations  of  place  than  a  sight  or  a  touch.  But  more 
of  this  in  another  place. 

§  84.  Fourth:  The  different  sensations,  as  subject- 
ive experiences  of  the  soul,  differ  greatly  from  one  another  to00 


another  in  respect  to  quality  and  intensity ;  in  other 
words,  they  differ  in  kind  and  degree.  Each  of  the 
leading  classes  of  sensations  differs  from  each  of  the  other 
classes,  as  the  sensations  of  sight  from  the  sensations  of  touch. 
Under  each  of  these  broadly  distinguished  classes  or  kinds, 
special  sensations  differ  from  one  another ;  as  the  different  tastes, 
feelings,  smells,  colors,  etc.,  etc.  What  are  called  the  same 
sensations,  differ  also  in  energy,  strength,  or  intensity  ;  as  one 
shade  of  the  same  color,  as  red,  is  deeper  or  more  intense  than 
another  shade  ;  one  odor  is  more  pungent  than  another. 

We  come  next  to  perception  or  perception  proper. 

§  85.  This,  as  has  already  been  explained,  is  no 
separate  act  or  state  of  the  soul ;  it  is  only  a  separa- 
ble or  distinguishable  element  of  a  single  complex  fedge!*  know~ 
act.     Perception,  as  such,  is, 

First:  an  act  of  knowledge  and  of  knowledge  only.  The  sensa- 
tional element  is  an  element  of  feeling,  attended,  indeed,  with 
the  knowledge  that  the  soul  which  feels  animates  an  extended 
organism ;  but  in  the  perceptional  act  the  soul  knows,  and  only 
knows. 

§  86.  Second :  This  knowledge  is  objective — i.  e., 
the  soul  not  only  knows  the  object  to  be,  but  it  knows  non^IJIf 
it  is  not  itself.  What  it  knows  is  a  non-ego,  a  not-  J^ 
me,  a  not-self.  But  from  what  self,  or  ego,  does  it 
distinguish  the  object?  or  what  kind  of  non-ego  does  the  per- 
ceiving soul  distinguish?  Is  it  what  is  usually  called  a  material 
object,  distinguished  from  the  organism  or  the  body  which  the 
soul  animates  and  moves  ?  or  is  it  the  organism  itself  which  the 
soul  distinguishes  from  itself,  though  it  animates  and  moves  it? 
It  should  be  carefully  kept  in  mind,  that,  as  there  are  three  non- 
egos — viz.,  the  not  body  as  distinguished  from  the  body  and  soul 
united ;  the  body  as  distinguished  from  the  soul ;  and  the  senso- 


1-06  THE    HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §88. 

riura  as  distinguished  from  the  soul  as  pure  spirit — so  there  are 
three  egos,  viz.:  the  soul  as  united  with  the  body  sensed  and  per- 
ceived, i.  e.,  the  living  body  as  a  whole ;  the  soul  as  animating  or 
connecting  with  the  sensorium ;  and  the  soul  as  distinguishable 
from  both  sensorium  and  body. 

Our  present  inquiry  is,  Which  of  these  objects  is  apprehended 
in  perception  proper?  Which  is  known,  or  might  be  known,  in 
connection  with  every  sensation,  or  in  every  act  of  sense-percep- 
tion? We  answer,  The  bodily  organism  itself,  or  rather  that 
part  of  the  sensorium  which  is  excited  to  action.  What  the  soul 
directly  perceives — i.  e.,  distinguishes  from  itself — is  its  own 
sensitive  organism,  so  far  as  it  is  excited  to  sensation.  This  is 
that  which  it  knows  to  be  not  itself,  even  though  it  knows  that 
in  sensation  it  is  intimately  connected  with  it.  The  immediate 
object  of  perception  proper  is  the  sensorium  in  some  forjm  of 
excited  action.  (§  98) 

It  is  not  intended  that,  in  the  order  or  time,  the  infant  does,  in 
the  earliest  development  of  the  reflective  consciousness,  apply 
the  pronoun  I  to  the  soul  as  distinguished  from  the  sensorium  or 
the  body.  It  is  most  evident  that  at  first,  and  for  a  very  long 
period  often,  this  appellation  is  applied  to  the  soul  and  the  body 
as  a  complex  whole,  and  this  ego  is  distinguished  from  what  is 
usually  called  a  material  thing. 

§  87.  Third :  The  object  in  perception  proper  is 

An  extended  -,      1 

non-vjo.  not  only  known  as  a  non-ego,  but  it  is  known  as  ex- 

tended. Even  in  sensation  proper  the  soul  knows 
itself  as  united  with  the  extended  sensorium  ;  much  more  when 
the  soul,  by  an  act  of  intelligence,  distinguishes  this  sensorium 
from  itself  as  a  purely  psychical  agent,  must  it  know  that  object 
to  be  extended  which  it  as  it  were  sets  over  against  itself.  We 
do  not  here  ask  what  extension  is,  or  how  it  is  possible  that  the 
unextended  spirit  can  know  extended  matter;  nor  do  we  ask 
what  are  the  relations  of  extension  to  space,  either  in  the  order 
of  knowledge  or  of  being.  These  questions  are  reserved  for 
future  discussion.  We  record  only  what  the  mind  actually  per- 
ceives, as  attested  by  our  experience  of  the  act  of  perception. 

Perception  at-  §  ^'  We  ask'  fourth  :  In  tne  exercise  of  which  of 
tends  aii  the  the  senses  does  the  mind  distinguish  this  non-egoistic 

iPiisatwms.  ,  , 

and  extended  object — in  the  exercise  of  one  or  two, 


§  89.  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  107 

or  of  each  and  all  ?  The  views  which  we  have  proposed  concern- 
ing sensation  involve  the  necessary  consequence  that  perception 
proper  occurs  in  connection  with  each  of  the  senses.  If  every 
sensation  involves  the  apprehension  of  the  extended  sensorium 
with  which  the  soul  is  connected,  then  it  follows  that  it  is  possi- 
ble to  perceive  this  sensorium,  to  whatever  sensation  it  is  excited, 
and  that  every  sense  gives  the  knowledge  of  an  extended  non- 
ego.  Some  of  these  senses  do  this  with  greater  indefiniteness  than 
others,  it  is  true — as  the  sense  of  smell  compared  with  the  sense 
of  touch,  but  all  with  equal  reality ;  if,  indeed,  it  is  true  that  no 
sensation  can  in  fact  occur  without  perception. 

Those  psychologists  who  make  sensation  to  be  a  purely  spiri- 
tual or  subjective  experience  of  merely  intensive  quality,  and  make 
perception  to  be  the  apprehension  of  the  cause  of  these  so-called 
feelings,  either  limit  perception  to  the  sensations  of  touch  and 
sight,  excluding  it  from  smell,  taste,  and  hearing — as  does  Reid 
— or  confine  it  to  touch  only,  as  Dugald  Stewart  and  Dr.  Thomas 
Brown. 

But  while  each  and  all  of  the  senses  alike  give  us 
an  extended  and  external  object,  'they  do  not  give 
it  with  equal  distinctness  and  clearness.     As  we  have  jocts°nJtlgi°vbeo 
already  observed,  the  senses  of  smell  and  hearing  are  SearneBs*1 
far  inferior  in  this  respect  to  the  senses  of  sight  and 
touch ;  and  so  far  inferior,  that  they  seem  to  many  not  to  give  it 
at  all.     The  muscular  sensations  are  also  more  conspicuously 
present  in  the  movement  and  direction  of  certain  organs  than  in 
the  management  and  experience  of  others. 

§  89.  We  pass,  fifth :  to  the  varying  relation  of      Thp  T     in 
the  sensational  and  perceptional  element  in  different   relatio.ns  of 

sensation   ana 

states  of  sense-perception.     The  general   law  is,  that  p^c^tion 
these  elements  vary  inversely— i.  e.,  as  the  sensah  m  is 
stronger,  the  perception  is  weaker,  and  vice-versa.     The  operation 
of  this  law  is  illustrated  in  the  different  sensations  of  the  same 
sense  as  compared  with  one  another,  and  also  in  the  different 
genses. 

Of  different  sensations  of  the  same  sense  we  ob- 
serve, that  in  some  the  attention  is  occupied  more  sensations™? 
with  the  sensation,  while  in  others  it  is  fixed  upon  the  *' 
object  which  the  sensation  reveals.     This  is  true  of 


senst*. 


108  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §89. 

tastes,  smells,  sounds,  touches  and  sights.  If  any  of  these  are  very 
agreeable  or  disagreeable,  the  subjective  pain  or  pleasure  which 
they  give,  solicits  and  absorbs  the  soul's  energy,  almost  or  entirely 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  apprehension  of  the  organism,  or  of  any 
thing  external.  If  they  are  what  we  call  indifferent  or  unex- 
citing, there  is  opportunity  for  the  mind  to  attend  to  the  rela- 
tions of  diverse  quality,  of  place,  form,  outline,  which  the  parti- 
cular sense  admits  of.  It  has  passed  into  a  proverb,  that  certain 
sensations  are  absorbing,  transporting,  ravishing,  enrapturing, 
and  ecstatic ;  all  of  which  terms  indicate  the  complete  occupation 
of  the  soul's  energy  in  subjective  enjoyment,  or,  as  the  case  may 
be,  in  pain  or  agony.  We  freely  remark  of  others,  that  in 
them  we  are  cool,  unexcited,  not  carried  away,  self-controlled ; 
which  epithets  imply  the  possibility  of  any  intellectual  activity 
which  may  be  required,  the  energy  of  simple  perception  being, 
of  course,  included. 

In  vision,  the  apprehensions  of  color  are  more  sen- 
rent  senses.  e"  suous ;  those  of  form  and  outline  are  more  perceptional 
and  intellectual.  In  gazing  upon  rich  and  gorgeous 
coloring,  as  of  a  splendid  sunset,  of  autumn  foliage,  or  a  glowing 
painting,  the  enjoyment  is  more  intense  and  the  excitement  is 
akin  to  pure  emotion.  In  the  apprehension  and  comparison  of 
form,  outline,  and  grouping,  color  is  less  conspicuous,  the  per- 
ceptional element  predominates,  and  approaches  the  purely  intel- 
lectual. But  just  in  this  proportion  does  the  sensuous  and 
passionate  give  way. 

In  touch,  if  we  take  a  burning  or  frosted  implement,  we  are  so 
occupied  with  the  pain,  that  we  do  not  notice  its  form,  surface, 
weight,  and  many  other  peculiarities  which  a  nicer  handling 
would  reveal,  which  delicate  handling  is  rendered  impossible  by 
the  absorption  of  the  soul  with  its  sensations.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  delicate  intellectual  touch,  which  apprehends  minute 
constituents,  slightly  varying  surfaces,  gentle  outlines,  fine  edges, 
etc.,  requires  as  an  essential  condition  that  the  sensations  be  not 
at  all  obtrusive.  He  that  passes  his  finger  over  the  edge  of  a 
razor  in. order  to  judge  of  its  fineness,  must  be  careful  that  no 
painful  sensations,  as  from  a  cut,  or  pleasant  sensations  as  of 
titillation,  disturb  or  distract  the  delicacy  of  his  perceptive 
touch.  In  all  these  examples  it  is  to  be  noticed,  that  so  far  as 


§  90.  CLASSES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  109 

we  exercise  sensation  proper  we  are  occupied  with  our  subjective 
condition  as  pleasant  or  painful ;  while  in  perception  proper  we 
apprehend  an  extended  non-ego. 

The  illustration  of  the  varying  energy  of  the  sensational  and 
perceptional  elements  hi  the  different  senses  will  be  given  in  the 
following  chapter. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

CLASSES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS. 

§  90.  The  sense-perceptions  may  be  divided  into 
three  leading  classes  :  the  muscular,  the  organic,  and  of   Sense-per- 
the  special  sense-perceptions.     This  division  is  in  part  muscular, 
directed  by  the  character  of  the    sensations  them- 
selves, and  in  part  by  their  bodily  conditions. 

The  muscular  sensations,  or  sense-perceptions,  comprehend  all 
those  which  arise  from  the  varying  conditions  of  the  muscles, 
whether  in  action  or  at  rest.  The  muscles  constitute  a  very  large 
portion  of  the  substance  or  structure  of  the  body.  They  also 
pervade  or  are  closely  connected  with  those  parts  and  organs 
which  are  not  muscular.  The  affections  appropriately  -called 
muscular  sense -perceptions  are  those  which  depend  on  the  con- 
traction and  relaxation  of  the  muscular  fibres,  or  the  varying  re- 
lative position  of  the  muscles.  As  we  slowly  stretch  or  violently 
jerk  out  the  arm  or  the  finger,  as  we  rotate  the  wrist,  as  we 
tread  or  kick  with  the  foot,  as  we  strain  the  whole  body  to  lift  a 
heavy  weight  or  to  push  against  a  resisting  obstacle,  or  as  we 
exert  a  part  or  the  whole  of  the  body  in  manifold  conceivable 
motions  or  efforts,  we  experience  as  great  a  variety  of  muscular 
sensations.  Scarcely  one  of  these  is  distinguished  by  a  separate 
name;  and  the  greater  part  of  them  escape  common  observation. 

They  are  ranked  lowest  in  the  scale  of  the  sense-perceptions, 
because  they  are  least  definitely  placed  in  the  sensorium,  because 
they  cannot  be  distinctly  recalled  to  the  memory,  and  because 
they  are  usually  the  least  positive  in  the  pleasure  and  pTiin  which 
they  occasion.  They  serve  most  important  uses,  however,  as  we 
shall  see,  in  enabling  us  so  to  direct  and  regulate  the  bodily 


HO  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §92. 

motions  as  to  distinguish  the  individual  body  from  the  rest  of  the 
material  universe,  and  to  defend  it  against  serious  or  fatal  in- 
juries. It  is  contended  by  many  that  we  derive  our  first  know- 
ledge of  extended  matter  from  the  muscular  sensations,  as 
through  their  /arying  movements  the  infant  first  explores  every 
part  of  the  organism  within,  and  from  the  sensorium  thus  ex- 
plored derives  the  standard  by  which  it  measures  the  material 
world  without.  (Cf.  §  98.) 

§  91.  The  organic  sensations  are  those  which  de- 

The  organic.  * 

pend  on  the  healthful  or  diseased  condition  of  the  vital 
organs;  such  as  the  stomach,  the  lungs,  the  heart,  the  other 
viscera,  and  the  nerves.  When  these  organs  are  entirely  healthy, 
and  their  functions  are  normally  performed,  they  are  attended 
with  no  very  positive  or  distinctly  noticed  sensations.  When 
they  are  injured  or  diseased,  the  sensations  which  attend  these 
conditions  are  always  unpleasant,  often  distressing,  and  invari- 
ably most  readily  distinguished  and  recognized.  The  healthy  man 
does  not  know  that  he  has  a  stomach.  The  dyspeptic  scarcely 
knows  that  he  has  anything  besides ;  he  is  so  absorbed  by  the 
uncomfortable  or  painful  sensations  that  are  occasioned  by  the 
diseased  organ.  The  same  is  true  of  a  man  whose  lungs,  heart,  or 
nerves  are  diseased.  This  class  of  sensations  are  more  readily 
distinguished  and  recalled  than  the  muscular,  because  they  are 
more  definite  and  positive. 

The  organic  sensations  are  often  blended  with  the  muscular. 
The  vital  organs  are  in  part  muscular,  or  intertwined  with  mus- 
cular fibre,  as  the  heart,  the  stomach,  etc.  Their  special  affec- 
tions are  therefore  exp°rienced  in  constant  connection  with 
normal  or  abnormal  muscular  sensations,  and  both  are  assigned 
to  the  same  parts  of  the  sentient  organism. 

§  92.  The   special  sense-perceptions  constitute  the 

remaining  and  the  most  important  class.     All  these 

are  distinguished  by  this  marked  peculiarity,  that 
objects'.  and  they  are  experienced  through  organs  specially  con. 

structed  for  the  sole  function  of  sense-perception. 
They  are  the  so-called  five  senses :   Smell,  taste,  hearing,  touch, 
and  sight     Each  of  these  is  clearly  distinguished   from  every 
Dther,  and  to  each  of  them  is  assigned  its  own  organ  or  organs. 
The  organ  of  smell  is  the  nostrils,  which  open  into  the  two 


§  92.  CLASSES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  Ill 

nasal  fossae,  the  plates  of  which  are  overlaid  by  a  mucous  mem- 
brane called  the  pituitary  membrane.  The  passages  between 
these  plates  are  somewhat  tortuous,  giving  extent  of  surface  for 
the  expanse  of  membrane,  and  the  ramifications  of  the  olfactory 
nerve. 

This  organ  is  in  immediate  contiguity  with  the  organs  of  taste, 
with  which  it  acts  in  ready  sympathy.  Offensive  smells  occasion 
nausea  and  disinclination  to  food.  Savory  odors,  on  the  other 
hand,  stimulate  the  appetite. 

It  is  generally  believed  that  smell  is  excited  only  by  the  con- 
tact of  the  interior  surface  of  the  organ  with  minute  portions 
of  matter,  or  gases  diffused  through  the  atmosphere.  But  what- 
ever uncertainty  there  may  be  in  respect  to  the  occasions  of  these 
sensations,  with  the  sensations  themselves  we  are  all  familiar. 
Their  varieties  are  almost  endless.  The  odors  from  flowers,  from 
food,  from  perfumes,  from  woods,  from  earths,  from  metals,  and 
from  many  other  objects,  are  too  numerous  to  be  classed  or  named 
except  in  a  very  general  way.  We  class  them  in  a  few  general 
and  obvious  groups,  as  quickening,  refreshing,  depressing,  sicken- 
ing, aromatic,  spicy,  etc.,  etc.  We  name  them  usually  from  the 
objects  which  excite  them,  as  the  odor  of  the  violet  and  the 
lilac,  of  the  rose  and  the  tuberose,  of  the  peach  and  the  apple, 
of  cedar  and  camphor-wood. 

It  is  to  be  'remembered  that  the  so-called  sensations  are  in 
truth  sense-perceptions — i.  e.,  they  involve  apprehended  relations 
of  externality  and  extension.  The  experience  of  every  odorf 
according  to  the  explanation  already  given,  must  be  referred  to 
some  part  of  the  sensorium.  These  sensations  are,  however,  very 
undefined  in  their  places  and  limits,  and  hence  it  has  been  sup- 
posed they  are  purely  psychical.  They  cannot  be  distinctly 
recalled  in  the  imagination  or  memory.  Hence,  in  our  actual 
perceptions  of  objects,  they  are  referred  directly  to  the  object  as 
seen  or  handled.  That  is,  the  object  seen  or  touched  occupies 
the  attention  and  engrosses  the  memory,  and  not  the  object 
smelled. 

The  language  and  terms  taken  from  this  sense  are  transferred 
to  supersensual  objects,  especially  to  the  moral  and  the  religious. 
The  odor  of  incense,  the  offense  that  is  rank,  and  smells  to  hea- 
ven,  and  the  like,  are  examples  of  such  an  application. 


112  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §93. 

§  93.  The  organs  of  taste  are  the  tongue,  the  palate. 

Taste:  organs  j  r>     ,          •,  m, 

and  a  portion  01  the  pharynx.     Ihese  are  also  truly, 


though  imperfectly,  organs  of  touch ;  but  they  are 
coated  with  a  membrane  which  is  organized  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  yield  a  variety  o£  special  sensations  called 
tastes.  The  tasting  organ,  so  far  as  it  can  be  traced,  consists  of 
minute  papillae,  which  cover  the  upper  surface  of  the  tongue  and 
the  inner  cavity  of  the  mouth. 

Sapid  substances  to  be  prepared  for  tasting,  must  be  made 
liquid.  Those  which  are  hard  and  compact,  must  be  broken  by 
mastication  and  dissolved  in  the  saliva.  The  harder  the  sub- 
stance and  the  slower  the  process  of  dissolving,  the  longer  does 
the  taste  continue. 

The  sensations  of  taste  are  various  in  kind  and  almost  count- 
less in  number.  They  are  capable  of  being  so  combined  as  to 
produce  singular  modifications  and  striking  contrasts.  They  can 
thus,  to  some  extent,  be  changed  by  custom  and  formed  by  art. 
Tastes  that  are  at  first  positively  disagreeable,  become  pleasant 
by  being  connected  with  a  stimulant  effect  upon  the  nervous  sys- 
tem— as  the  pungent  and  fiery  taste  of  strong  liquors,  and  the 
nauseating  taste  of  tobacco.  Or  the  sense-organ  itself  becomes 
less  sensitive  in  its  energy,  and  of  coarse  less  offended  by  the  sen- 
sations which  were  at  first  more  intense,  and  therefore  positively 
disagreeable. 

Tastes,  like  smells,  are  designated  by  a  few  general  epithets,  as 
pungent,  bitter,  sweet,  spicy,  acrid,  sharp ;  more  precisely  by  the 
objects  which  occasion  them,  as  the  taste  of  pepper  or  alum,  of 
the  peach  or  the  plum,  of  different  vegetables  and  meats.  Of 
this  language  or  vocabulary  of  taste  we  may  say  in  general,  that 
it  is  taken  originally  from  the  sense  of  touch,  as  the  obvious 
meaning  of  some  of  the  terms,  and  the  less  obvious  roots  of  others, 
both  indicate.  The  reason  is  obvious.  The  organ  of  taste  is  also 
an  organ  of  touch.  The  tongue  touches  as  well  as  tastes.  Cer- 
tain tastes  are  attended  with  certain  touches. 

It  ought  not  to  escape  our  notice  in  this  connection,  that  the 
sense  of  the  beautiful  and  the  .sublime  in  nature,  art,  and  litera- 
ture, and  the  capacity  for  judging  rightly  of  its  occasions  or 
sources,  is  called  taste  in  many  languages ;  a  singular  transfer  of 
a  term  from  one  of  the  grossest  of  the  animal  capacities  to  one 


§  94.  CLASSES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  113 

of  the  highest  of  the  psychical  endowments.  It  is  explained  by 
the  fact  that  tha  corporeal  sense  of  taste  is  susceptible  of  fine  and 
delicate  discriminations. 

The  question  is  never  mooted,  whether  the  sensations  of  taste 
are  purely  subjective,  or  independent  of  all  relations  of  exter- 
nality and  extension.  Taste,  as  a  sensation,  is  inconceivable  ex- 
cept as  an  affection  of  that  part  of  the  sensorium  which  pervades 
the  surface  of  the  tongue  and  palate. 

§  94.  The  sense  of  hearing  comes  next  in  order.  IIearin  itg 
Its  organ  is  a  complicated  and  convoluted  bony  tube  ?r«an  aud  ob- 
or  chamber,  resembling  somewhat  the  interior  of  a 
snail-shell,  and  furnished  externally  with  an  expanded  append- 
age, the  surface  of  which  is  corrugated  very  much  after  the  man- 
ner of  the  bony  passage  within.  The  object  of  the  external  ear 
(which  with  the  internal  constitutes  the  organ),  is  to  receive,  con- 
vey, and  quicken  the  vibratory  action  of  the  air  till  it  reaches  the 
tympanum.  This  is  a  parchment-like  substance,  which,  by  the 
aid  of  a  chain  of  bones,  bears  upon  a  liquid  within.  The  arrange- 
ment of  this  entire  structure,  when  judged  by  mechanical  prin- 
ciples, is  obviously  adapted  and  designed  to  carry  and  increase 
vibratory  action.  But  the  vibrating  tympanum  is  not  itself  hear- 
ing. Though  we  seek  for  the  spirit  of  sound  in  all  these  narrow 
and  winding  chambers,  we  cannot  find  it  there ;  but  it  flees  from 
our  search  like  a  shadow  or  a  mocking  spirit.  It  is  the  soul 
which  lives  in  the  sensorium  that  hears.  When  the  tympanum 
is  made  to  vibrate  with  the  requisite  intensity  and  rapidity, 
and  the  nervous  apparatus  is  unharmed,  the  soul,  if  attent, 
experiences  the  sense-perceptions  which  we  call  the  sensations  of 
sound. 

Every  body  which  emits  or  conveys  sound  is  susceptible  of 
vibration.  The  sonorous  body  with  which  we  are  most  familiar, 
is  the  atmosphere,  which,  by  being  everywhere  present,  is  the 
constant  and  the  pervading  medium  of  sound.  Many  solid 
bodies  are,  however,  capable  of  more  delicate  vibrations,  and 
hence  are  more  perfect  conductors  of  sound  ;  or  perhaps  they  owe 
their  effect  on  the  sensorium  in  part  to  the  vibrations  which  touch 
conveys  through  the  bony  structure.  A  stick  of  timber  will  con- 
vey to  the  ear  in  contact  with  it,  a  whisper  or  the  scratch  of  a 
pin,  scores  or  hundreds  of  feet.  If  the  ear  is  brought  into  con- 


114  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  94. 

tact  with  a  musical  instrument,  either  directly  or  through  the 
medium  of  some  intervening  substance,  the  intensity  of  the  sound 
is  greatly  increased. 

Of  these  sensations  there  is  a  great  variety.    What 

The  sensations  .  J 

various,    in      deserves  especial  notice  is,  that  each  one  of  this  end- 

what    respects  .  . 

distingui&ha-  less  variety  is  readily  distinguished  irom  every  other, 
and  very  many  of  them  can  be  recalled  and  re- 
cognized. A  single  human  voice  is  capable  of  emitting  a  great 
variety  in  respect  to  quality,  tone,  and  pitch.  The  voice  of  each 
individual  has  its  distinguishable  characteristic  in  each  of  these 
particulars.  The  wind  sighs  and  whistles  and  groans  in  the 
forest,  or  beats  and  rolls  among  the  clouds  like  resounding 
waves.  Almost  every  substance  has  a  sound  of  its  own  when  it 
strikes  or  falls  upon  another,  and  this  sound  can  be  varied  in 
quantity  and  quality. 

Single  sensations  of  sound  are  distinguished  by  quality,  by  in- 
tensity or  loudness,  and  by  volume  or  quantity.  Besides  these 
obvious  differences,  there  are  others  less  discernible  to  common 
apprehension,  which  are  observed  and  named  by  elocutionists 
and  musicians.  The  epithets  which  we  commonly  hear  are  such 
as  low  and  high,  feeble  and  loud,  soft  and  harsh,  smooth  and 
rough — sweet,  gentle,  clear,  piercing,  light,  heavy,  etc.,  etc.  All 
these  epithets  were  originally  appropriated  to  the  other  senses, 
especially  to  those  of  touch.  Some  few  are  derived  from  taste 
and  sight.  To  a  limited  extent,  sounds  are  named  from  the 
objects  which  excite  them :  as  the  bell  and  glass,  like  the 
wooden,  the  metallic,  etc.,  etc. 

Besides  these   distinguishing  differences  in  single 

Sounds  in  snc-  ,  ,  .   ,     ,     , 

cession  .md       sensations  of  sound,  there  are  others  which  belong  to 

combination.  .  .  ,  ,  .          .  c<  i 

Melody  and  sounds  when  in  succession  and  combination,  bounds 
of  almost  any  quality  become  pleasing  when  uttered 
in  any  regular  succession ;  especially  when  a  series  is  made  to 
repeat  and  to  return  upon  itself,  and  its  measures  or  intervals  are 
marked  by  accent  or  beat.  Examples  of  these  are  the  beating 
of  a  drum  to  a  tune,  the  rhythmical  measure  of  well-sounding 
prose,  or  the  more  regular  and  marked  repetitions  of  poetic 
verse.  If  the  sounds  possess  musical  quality,  these  repetitions 
constitute  melody,  giving  exquisite  sensuous  pleasure  to  the  ear, 
and,  by  expression,  speaking  movingly  to  the  soul.  To  this  is 


§94.  CLASSES   OF  SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  115 

superadded  the  more  refined  attribute  of  harmony,  when  sounds 
of  different  musical  quality  are  given  in  concord,  greatly  enlarg- 
ing, enriching,  and  elevating  both  the  sensuous  and  expressional 
resources  of  music.  Melody  and  harmony  combined,  when 
added  to  what  cullure  has  done  for  the  voice,  and  art  for  the 
improvement  of  instruments,  are  the  grounds  of  the  elevated  en- 
joyment that  music  affords. 

The  sensations  of  sound  are  invested  with  even  a 

,.  .„  .  The  condition 

higher  interest,  and  applied  to  a  still  more  elevated  of  oral  ian- 
use.  Without  the  sense  of  hearing,  vocal  utterances  passive  of 
do  not  become  sounds  ;  and  witliout  vocal  utterances 
as  heard,  there  could  be  no  language.  As  addressed  to  and  af- 
fecting the  senses,  sounds  are  pleasing  or  displeasing,  musical 
and  melodious  or  the  contrary,  harmonious  or  discordant ;  as 
significant  of  human  thought  and  feeling,  they  are  endowed  with 
a  wondrous  and  almost  a  sublime  power.  When  we  listen  to  a 
foreign  language  of  which  we  are  ignorant,  or  when  we  cannot 
catch  the  sense  of  our  mother- tongue,  it  is  to  our  ears  a  jargon 
or  a  chatter,  or,  at  best,  but  a  pleasing  flow  of  insignificant 
sense-perceptions.  But  as  soon  as  these  sounds  are  understood, 
they  become  the  audible  expressions  of  thought,  in  its  most 
subtle  distinctions  and  its  mos£  complicated  connections. 

Not  only  are  sounds  significant  of  thought ;  they  also  express 
feeling.  Even  simple  and  inarticulate  tones  do  this,  especially 
.f  the  tones  are  musical,  or  partake  of  musical  quality.  The 
whine  of  the  beggar,  the  command  of  the  master,  and  the  threat 
of  the  enraged,  are  expressive  as  tones,  even  when  no  words  are 
uttered,  or  when  the  uttered  words  fail  to  be  understood.  A 
plaintive  or  a  triumphant  strain  of  music  is  easily  interpreted, 
though  no  thoughts  are  uttered  in  words.  But  when  thought 
and  feeling  are  both  conveyed,  the  one  by  clear  and  well-chosen 
words,  and  the  other  by  an  expressive  elocution,  arid  the  soul  is 
enraptured  and  elevated  by  eloquent  speecji,  then  the  resources 
of  sound  and  the  importance  of  hearing  begin  to  be  appreciatedc 
When,  again,  poetry  and  music  lend  both  grace  and  expression 
to  thought  and  feeling,  we  have  a  still  higher  example  of  the 
dignity  of  a  single  sense,  and  the  wondrous  uses  to  which  it 
may  be  applied  in  the  service  of  the  soul. 

Tn  view  of  these  relations,   the  sense  of  hearing  has   been 


116  THE   HUMAN  INTELLECT.  §  95. 

ranked  higher  than  any  other.  It  effects  a  connection  between 
one  soul  and  another ;  it  enables  the  spirit  to  breathe  out  feelings 
which  even  articulate  speech  cannot  utter.  Its  dignity  and 
worth  are  especially  illustrated  in  the  case  of  the  blind.  It  is  to 
them  the  subtle  interpreter  of  those  emotions,  which  are  ex- 
pressed to  others  by  the  eye,  the  countenance,  the  attitude,  and  the 
gesture  all  combined.  To  the  blind  the  voice  softens  in  tender- 
ness, thrills  with  love,  is  harsh  from  anger,  and  lingers  in  entreaty. 
To  them  every  tone  breathes  some  shade  of  emotion.  An  intelligent 
and  educated  blind  man  once  remarked  with  great  energy,  "  The 
human  voice  is  to  me  the  divinest  endowment  of  man." 

§  95.  The  sense  of  touch  comes  next  in  order.     The 

The  sense  of  •        «         i  • 

louch.  its  organ  of  this  sense  is  the  skin.  The  skin  is  the  ex- 
ternal covering  of  the  body,  and  the  lining  of  certain 
internal  cavities,  as  the  mouth.  Its  sensations  depend  on  the 
action  of  certain  minute  papillce,  which  are  placed  beneath  the 
external  cuticle,  each  one  of  which  encloses  the  termination 
of  some  nerve,  or  nervous  branch  or  branchlet.  Different 
portions  of  the  skin  are  more  or  less  sensitive,  and  the  perceptions 
which  are  gained  through  them  are  more  or  lass  delicate,  accord- 
ing to  the  number  of  the  nerves  and  the  fineness  and  frequency 
of  the  nervous  terminations.  The  thickness  or  thinness  of 
the  external  covering  or  cuticle  is  also  an  important  circum- 
stance. In  general,  those  portions  of  the  body  in  which  the 
perceptions  are  least  acute  and  discriminating  are  the  most 
scantily  supplied  with  nerves,  and  their  branches  extend  over  a 
very  large  surface — in  some  cases  over  several  square  inches. 
In  the  more  sensitive  parts  of  the  body,  on  the  other  hand,  there 
are  very  many  distinct  nerves  and  nervous  branches  and 
branch  lets. 

The  distinguished  physiologist,  E.  H.  Weber,  was  the  first  who 
instituted  a  series  of  careful  experiments,  in  order  definitely  to 
ascertain  the  different  degrees  of  sensitiveness  in  touch  of  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  body.  He  applied  for  this  purpose  the  points 
of  a  pair  of  dividers,  which  were  separated  more  or  less  widely. 
He  ascertained  that  in  some  parts  of  the  body  these  points  could 
not  be  perceived  as  separate,  unless  the  dividers  were  opened  as 
widely  as  three  inches ;  while  in  others  the  extremities  needed  to 
be  only  the  thirty-sixth  of  an  inch  apart  in  order  to  be  distinctly 


§96.  CLASSES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  117 

perceived.  Similar  experiments  have  been  made  by  other  physi- 
ologists. The  tip  of  the  tongue,  the  lips,  and  the  ends  of  the 
fingers,  are  the  most  sensitive  and  discriminating  portions.  The 
human  hand,  inasmuch  as  it  is  lined  with  a  sensitive  covering, 
and — through  its  connection  with  the  arm  and  shoulder,  and  its 
division  into  thumb  and  fingers — is  provided  with  an  apparatus 
especially  adapted  to  regulate  and  direct  the  application  of  touch 
and  pressure,  is  preeminently  the  organ  of  touch. 

It  is  an  essential  condition  of  a  sense-perception 
of  touch,  that  the  object  should  be  actually  applied 
to  or  brought  in  contact  with  the  organ — i.  e.,  with 
some  portion  of  the  surface  of  the  body.  According  as  this 
application  is  made  with  greater  or  less  force,  the  sensation  varies 
in  intensity  a-nd  the  perception  in  distinctness,  and  sometimes  the 
quality  of  the  sensation  is  changed.  A  light  pressure  or  gentle 
touch,  is  usually  favorable  to  distinct  or  delicate  perception. 
If  the  pressure  is  increased,  the  sensation  may  become  excessive 
and  unpleasant,  and  even  positively  painful ;  while  the  per- 
ception is  less  acute,  owing,  probably,  to  the  compression  of  the 
nerve  or  nerves.  In  some  cases,  the  very  slightest  contact  that 
is  possible,  with  a  careful  avoidance  of  pressure,  as  in  the  touch 
of  a  feather,  is  attended  with  the  greatest  sensibility  and  the 
acutest  discernment.  But  the  force  of  the  application  of  the 
organ  to  the  object  of  touch  depends  usually  on  muscular  effort. 
It  scarcely  ever  can  happen  that  muscular  effort  is  not  called 
into  requisition,  either  in  positive  and  direct  pressure,  as  of  the 
hand  or  finger,  or  in  withholding  from  pressure  beyond  a  certain 
degree,  or  in  resisting  pressure  when  it  is  imposed  from  without. 

§  96.  Hence  it  is  that  the    muscular    sensations 
always  attend  and  often  seem  to  be  blended  with  the 
perceptions  that  are  appropriate  to  touch.    In  the  ac- 
quired  or  complex  perceptions  of  touch,  these  muscu- 
lar  sensations  play  a  conspicuous  part.     In  the  classi- 
fications of  common  life  and  in  those  of  the  earlier  philosopher?, — 
both  psychologists   and    physiologists, — the  muscular   sensations 
were  assigned  to  the  sense  of  touch.     So  were  the  sensations  of 
temperature,  many  of  which   arise   from  contact  with   a   body 
warmer   or   colder   than   the  touching   o~gan,  and   hence  were 
referred  to  touch  proper.     Inasmuch  as  these  various  classes  of 


118  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  96. 

sensations  are  all  concerned  in  many  of  the  perceptions  of  touch, 
it  is  necessary  to  consider  each  apart. 

•The  first  class  are  the  sensations  of  gentle  touch,  or  of  touch 
proper.  These  sensations  are  occasioned  more  frequently  by 
feeling  an  extended  surface,  but  they  may,  and  often  do,  arise 
from  gentle  contact  with  the  extremity  of  a  pointed  body.  Sen- 
sations thus  arising  are  neither  pleasurable  nor  painful,  and  one 
is  scarcely  distinguishable  from  another.  Hence  none  of  them 
can  be  readily  rep^duced  in  the  memory.  Pressure  against  a 
surface,  or  motion  over  it,  each  involving  muscular  sensations, 
seems  to  be  required  as  the  condition  of  sensations  sufficiently 
positive  and  energetic  to  enable  us  to  distinguish  the  objects 
themselves,  and  to  recall  to  memory  the  sensations  which  they 
occasion. 

The  second   class  are  the  acute  and  often  painful 

Sensations  in-  .  .    J  , 

voivingvio-      sensations  that  come  from  any  affection    that  does 

lence  or  injury. 

violence  to  the  organ,  as  the  prick  of  a  pointed  sub- 
stance, the  cut  of  a  knife,  the  stroke  of  a  whip,  the  bruise  from  a 
stick.  These  sensations  are  all  distinct  and  energetic,  and  occa- 
sion a  shock  to  the  nervous  system  which  is  more  or  less  violent. 
They  are  more  definitely  localized  than  the  sensations  of  touch 
proper,  and  more  distinctly  revived  and  recalled.  The  sensitiveness 
of  the  skin  to  affections  of  this  kind  is  not  proportioned  to  the 
sensitiveness  of  its  touch.  It  has  been  proved  by  the  experiments 
of  Weber  and  others,  that  those  parts  of  the  surface  of  the  body 
which  are  furnished  with  the  fewest  and  the  most  sparsely  ramified 
nerves  and  branches  of  nerves,  and  are  the  most  incapable  of 
sensations  of  touch  proper,  are  none  the  less  susceptible  to  exqui- 
site sensations  of  this  sort.  These  sensations  are  not  confined  to 
the  surface  of  the  body,  its  interior  portions  b -ing  capable  of  ex- 
quisite suffering  from  pricking,  cutting,  and  laceration.  Sensa- 
tions of  this  class  seem  to  be  more  nearly  allied  to  those  which 
we  have  called  organic,  and  which  are  most  conspicuous  when 
an  organ  is  injured  or  diseased. 

The    third    class    are    sensations   of  temperature. 
sensations  of  These  arise  usually  from  contact  of  the  body  with 

some  material  object  differing  in  temperature  from 
itself.  They  are  also  experienced,  by  what  is  called  radiation, 
from  an  object  not  in  contact  with  the  body.  In  such  cases  the 


§96.  CLASSES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  119 

body  may  be  said  to  be  in  direct  communication  or  contact  with 
the  heated  atmosphere,  or  the  vibrating  medium  of  heat.  The 
sensations  of  temperature  are,  in  mauy  particulars,  like  the  pain- 
ful sensations  which  we  have  just  described.  They  are  like  them 
in  not  being  confined  to  the  surface.  In  case  of  scalding  from  water 
or  steam,  or  of  a  severe  burn  from  fire,  or  of  violent  internal  inflam- 
mation, or  of  febrile  excitement,  their  causes  are  purely  internal, 
and  the  affections  are  organic.  The  sensitiveness  of  the  body  to 
heat  and  cold  is  not  proportioned  to  its  susceptibility  to  touch. 
The  fourth  class  are  the  sensations  of  pressure  or 

.  Sensations  of 

weight.  These,  so  far  as  they  are  definite  and  pecu-  pressure  and 
liar,  are  the  slightly  benumbed  and  painful  feeling 
which  a  weight  occasions  when  laid  upon  the  hand  or  arm,  when 
there  is  no  muscular  effort  to  sustain  or  resist  the  pressure.  In 
such  a  case  slight  additions  may  be  made  to  the  bulk  of  the 
body  imposed,  without  being  perceived.  If  the  same  experiments 
are  made  upon  the  parts  of  the  body  which  are  more  mobile — as 
upon  the  lips,  when  resistance  and  muscular  effort  is  provoked 
and  made  necessary — minute  differences  will  be  perceived  and 
appreciated.  Accurate  experiments  of  this  kind  were  made  by 
Weber,  eliciting  surprising  results.  Hence  the  so-called  sensa- 
tions of  weight  are  very  largely  complex  in  their  nature,  consisting 
largely  of  muscular  sensations. 

The  fifth  class  are  the  muscular  sensations,  which 
have  been  already  sufficiently  characterized.  Not  sJusltTon^111*1 
only  do  they  enter  very  largely  into  the  sensations  of 
weight,  but  into  all  those  sensations  which  require  motion  upon, 
and  application  to,  the  surface  of  the  body  which  is  touched.  The 
sensations  of  the  rough  and  smooth,  of  the  adhesive  and  slippery, 
of  the  elastic  and  non-elastic,  are  of  this  character.  According 
to  the  nicety  with  which  these  sensations  are  distinguished,  is  the 
delicacy  of  perception.  Success  in  any  manual  art  depends  upon 
this  sort  of  delicacy.  Skill  in  sewing,  engraving,  and  drawing, 
in  the  handling  of  tools,  in  driving,  rowing,  and  playing  on 
musical  instruments,  depends  on  the  natural  capacity  for  and  the 
nice  attention  to  these  muscular  sensations.  They  are  equally, 
if  not  more  important,  to  our  judgments  of  form,  size,  distance, 
and  the  various  relations  of  extension,  as  we  shall  see  in  consid- 
ering the  acquired  perceptions. 


120  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  97. 

One  feature  all  these  sensations  share  in  common. 
fSd.0118  lo~  Though  sufficiently  alike  to  be  classed  together  as 

tactual,  muscular,  etc.,  etc.,  yet  they  differ  in  quality 
according  to  the  part  of  the  body  which  is  their  seat.  The 
tactual  sensations  on  the  palm  are  different  from  those  on  the 
back  of  the  hand ;  those  on  the  hand  are  different  from  those  on 
the  different  parts  of  the  arm,  and  so  on  through  every  portion 
of  the  surface  of  the  body.  The  same  is  true  of  the  different 
muscular  sensations.  The  muscular  sensations  which  attend  the 
opening  and  closing  of  one  finger,  differ  from  those  which  are 
experienced  in  opening  and  shutting  the  hand.  Those  which  we 
feel  in  managing  the  arm  differ  from  those  which  are  used  in 
controlling  the  position  of  the  head.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
other  classes  of  sensations  which  are  appropriate  to  the  interior 
of  the  trunk  or  the  vital  organs.  This  fact  is  of  great  import- 
ance in  the  explanation  of  the  acquired  perceptions. 

§  97.  From  considering  the  sensational  element 
peercoftitonusch1!0'  ™  touch,  we  pass  to  the  perceptional.  By  percep- 
tion proper,  in  touch,  as  in  the  other  senses,  we  ap- 
prehend objects  as  extended  and  external.  To  touch  has  been 
assigned  especial  superiority  in  these  discriminations.  Many 
limit  them  exclusively  to  touch,  making  it  the  only  agent 
through  which  we  perceive,  and  assigning  to  all  the  other  senses 
the  sensational  function  only.  Others,  as  we  have  already  said, 
limit  perception  proper  to  touch  and  sight.  We  have  given  our 
reasons  for  holding  that  through  every  sensation,  and  of  course 
in  connection  with  every  one  of  the  senses,  we  perceive— i.  e.,  we 
apprehend  objects  as  extended  and  external.  The  perceptions 
of  touch,  however,  differ  from  those  of  the  other  senses  not  only 
in  being  more  definite  and  minute,  in  consequence  of  the  greater 
energy  of  the  sensations,  but  also  (with  the  exception  of  sight) 
in  their  immeasurably  superior  variety.  For  this  reason  they 
deserve  special  consideration. 

Let  it  be  observed  as  a  preliminary,  that  we  do 
JSSbytoSS!  not,  by  touch  alone,  know  mathematical  extension, 
£°4  exSon  nor  mathematical  qualities,  nor  the  relations  of  pure 
i?mtbe  °rgan~  mathematical  quantities  to  one  another,  nor  to  the 

pure  or  abstract  space  or  time  which  we  conceive  to 
exigt.  We  simply  perceive  extended  and  external  somethings. 


§  97.  CLASSES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  121 

It  is  contended  by  many  that  the  reason  why  we  perceive  ex- 
tension by  touch,  either  exclusively,  or  in  common  with  sight,  is, 
that  the  organism  itself  is  extended.  We  find,  they  say,  that  in 
those  parts  of  the  skin  in  which  our  perception  of  extension  is 
the  most  definite  and  acute,  the  nerves  and  the  nervous  endings 
are  most  frequent ;  while  in  those  portions  in  which  its  dimen- 
sions are  most  vaguely  perceived,  these  are  more  sparse.  Hence 
it  is  concluded  that  two  nervous  terminations  at  least  are  re- 
quired for  the  apprehension  of  superficial  extension.  Moreover, 
it  is  urged  that,  as  the  remaining  organs,  except  those  of  sight 
and  touch,  are  each  furnished  with  a  single  nerve  only,  or,  at 
most,  with  a  single  pair,  that  is  the  sufficient  reason  why,  by 
means  of  these,  we  have  no  perception  of  extension.  In  touch  and 
sight,  it  is  said,  the  soul  being  affected  by  sensations  through  nervea 
placed  side  by  side,  must  necessarily  perceive  objects  as  extended. 
This  view  is  held  chiefly  by  physiologists,  and,  among  them,  by 
the  distinguished  John  Miiller,  with  whom  many  others  agree. 

Of  this  theory  we  observe,  that  it  overlooks  entirely  the  dif- 
ferences between  the  physical  conditions  of  perception  and  the 
act  of  perception.  It  may  be,  and  probably  is,  a  necessary  con- 
dition to  the  perception  of  extension  by  touch  and  sight,  that 
many  nerves  should  terminate  side  by  side  or  be  spread  over  an 
extended  expanse  in  the  organs.  But  it  is  one  thing  for  the 
nervous  apparatus  to  occupy  an  extended  organ,  and  entirely 
another  for  the  mind,  by  means,  or  on  occasion  of  the  sensations 
which  follow  the  excitement  of  these  nerves,  to  perceive  an  ex- 
tended object.  The  soul  is  not  aware  that  it  has  nerves  at  all,  or 
that  one  or  more  are  called  into  action.  Nor  is  it  aware  that 
separate  parts  of  the  skin,  or  other  organs,  are  thus  affected.  It 
knows  neither  nerves  nor  extended  organs  as  organs.  The 
spatial  arrangement  of  the  nervous  endings  may  be  a  physiologi- 
cal fact,  but  this  fact  does  not  in  the  least  explain  the  apprehen- 
sion of  extension  as  a  psychical  process.  Moreover,  this  theory, 
and  many  others  adopted  by  physiologists,  involve  the  absurdity 
of  making  the  soul  first  to  know  extension  physiologically,  in 
order  to  know  extension  psychologically — i.  e.,  they  require  it  to 
know  the  nerves  as  side  by  side,  in  order  to  know  that  very  pro- 
perty which  is  essential  to  knowing  one  object  as  side  by  side 
with  another. 
6 


122  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  98. 

The  correct  analysis  of  the  psychical  process  is  that  as  the 
tactual  and  muscular  and  other  more  subjective  sensations,  are 
called  into  action,  they  are  known  to  pertain  to  the  soul,  as  con- 
nected with  an  extended  sensorium.  This  sensorium  is  known 
to  the  soul  not  as  a  collection  of  nerve-endings  or  nerve-expan- 
sions, but  as  found  in  various  conditions  of  activity,  involving 
the  souPs  own  active  sympathy  of  either  suffering  or  enjoyment. 
All  these  sensations  involve  some  relation  of  extension  and 
place,  very  vague  at  first,  but  sure  to  be  more  positive  and  de- 
finite as  soon  as  the  soul  fixes  its  attention  upon  each.  The  soul, 
as  it  were,  occupies  and  pervades  the  sensorium  as  extended  in 
all  directions.  Its  attention  is  first  fixed  upon  certain  of  the 
sensations  that  are  most  positive  or  energetic,  both  the  muscular 
and  the  tactual.  Then  the  local  diversities  and  likenesses  are 
noticed,  and  the  relations  of  place  within  and  upon  the  surface 
of  the  body  become  fixed.  Differences  in  direction,  form,  size, 
etc.,  are  known,  by  processes  which  we  shall  explain  under  the 
acquired  perceptions.  But  in  order  to  any  one  of  these  dis- 
criminations it  must  be  assumed  that  in  the  original  perceptions 
of  touch,  extension,  the  sensorium  as  extended  in  three  dimen- 
sions, is  directly  perceived.  Unless  such  knowledge  is  gained 
directly  in  connection  with  touch,  it  cannot  afterwards  be  ac- 
quired. But  tangible  objects  are  not  only  known  as  extended  ; 
they  are  also  known  as  external.  This  brings  us  to  our  next 
division : 

§  98.    Externality,  or  outness,  is  involved  in  the 

extension  which  is  known  by  the  sensations  of  touch. 

Externality  differs  from  simple  diversity,  or  differ- 
ence. Diversity  may  pertain  to  objects  that  are  purely  spiritual, 
as  a  series  of  mental  activities  or  mental  entities. 

But  externality  as  apprehended  in  perception,  as 
ofWexternaiitf.  has  already  been  explained,  is  the  diversity  or  dis- 

tinguishability  of  an  extended  object  from  the  spirit 
as  non-spatial  and  non-extended ;  and  again,  it  is  the  separate- 
ness  or  separableness  of  the  surrounding  material  universe  from 
the  animated  body.  Both  these  relations  are  apprehended  in 
sense-perception,  and  pre-eminently  by  the  sense  of  touch.  It  is 
not  only  important,  but  essential,  that  these  two  meanings  be  not 
confounded. 


§  98.  CLASSES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  123 

It  is  also  important  to  observe,  that  the  externality  which  we 
perceive,  is,  like  the  extension,  not  abstract,  but  concrete; 
or,  in  more  familiar  terms,  an  external  object,  or  an  object  as 
external. 

We  will  consider  the  two  senses  of  externality  in  Externalifv  in 
their  order.  As  to  the  first,  we  ask,  How  does  the 
soul,  in  touch,  perceive  its  own  body  to  be  external  to 
itself?  We  answer, — as  we  have  done  already,  (§  86), — Precisely 
as  through  the  other  senses,  by  an  immediate  and  inexpli- 
cable act  of  its  own.  It  perceives  directly  its  own  body  as  a  not- 
self  or  a  non-ego ;  originally  its  own  sensorium  excited  to  sensation. 
We  open  this  question  a  second  time  in  connection  with  the  sense 
of  touch,  because  it  has  been  often  urged  that  its  sensations  are 
peculiar  in  revealing  outness,  or  externality. 

Some — as  Keid — contend  that  the  simple  sense  of  resistance 
or  hardness,  or  that  affection  of  the  sensorium  which  every  solid 
body  occasions,  directly  suggests  outness. 

Dr.  Thomas  Brown  teaches  that  all  proper  tactual  sensations, 
like  other  sensations  proper,  are  purely  subjective  and  spiritual, 
without  the  suggestions  of  externality  and  extension,  and  that  it 
is  only  through  the  muscular  sensations  that  the  knowledge  of 
the  non-ego  is  gained.  "  We  open  the  hand  or  the  arm,  as  we 
have  done  in  a  score  of  previous  instances,  without  striking 
against  an  object.  All  that  we  experience  is  a  succession 
of  purely  subjective  affections — affections  simply  and  solely 
spiritual.  But  we  strike  against  a  wall,  or  other  resisting 
medium,  and  we  ask,  What  has  caused  this  new  sensation  ?  We 
answer,  it  is  not  myself,  for  I  have  previously  had,  or  rather  pro- 
duced, only  a  succession  of  spiritual  states,  in  a  series  of  muscu- 
lar sensations.  But  here  is  a  change.  I  have  a  sensation  un- 
caused by  myself,  but  caused  by  a  being  different  from  myself. 
There  exists,  therefore,  a  being  not  myself,  and  so  I  reach  the 
non-ego,  or  externality."  To  this  solution  or  explanation  there 
is  this  fatal  objection,  that  allowing  that  the  order  of  sensations 
has  been  previously  the  same,  and  that  the  order  is  for  the  first 
time  changed  by  some  resisting  object,  the  change  would  consist 
eimply  in  a  new  subjective  experience.  The  resisting  object 
would  give  a  novel  sensation,  but  it  would  still  be  subjective. 
However  unusual  this  may  be,  it  is  only  subjective  and  psychi- 


124  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  99. 

cal,  and,  according  to  Brown's  theory,  can  give  no  relation  of 
extension,  and  therefore  no  relation  of  externality.  Even  if  in 
the  way  supposed,  a  cause  other  than  the  agent  could  be  reached, 
it  might  be  purely  spiritual,  and  not  necessarily  spatial. 

All  these,  and  every  other  theory  of  the  sort,  have  one  common 
weakness — that  they  require  us,  by  some  arrangement  or  series 
or  combination  of  sensations  purely  subjective,  to  account  for  or 
develop  an  objective,  i.  e.,  an  external  non-ego.  But  it  is  obvious 
that  it  is  not  the  greater  or  less  positiveness  of  a  subjective  sensa- 
tion, nor  any  change  in  the  order  of  such  sensations,  which  would 
elicit  a  non-ego,  unless  this  were  immediately  discerned  by  the 
mind  itself. 

But  what !  it  may  be  asked,  when  I  grasp  a  pebble, 
aiwweered?n       or  an  ivory  ball,  or  a  stick,  is  that  which  I  perceive 

as  external  to  myself  simply  the  sensorium  excited 
by  the  object  grasped  ?  Is  this  the  non-ego  which  I  perceive, 
and  this  only  ?  We  reply,  that  this  is  the  only  non-ego,  which 
we  reach  by  direct  and  original  perception.  The  question  is  not 
what  is  in  fact  first  noticed  in  the  order  of  time,  but  what  is  first 
and  ultimate  in  the  analysis  of  thought.  But  do  we  not  perceive 
also  the  object  which  produces  these  sensations?  Do  we  not 
directly  perceive  the  surface  of  the  pebble,  the  ball,  or  the  stick, 
as  diverse  from  the  sensorium,  and  the  body  which  it  pervades? 
Not  by  immediate  perception.  If  we  did,  it  would  involve  the 
inference  that  we  perceive  a  non'ego,  viz.,  the  surface  of  the 
pebble  as  touched,  and  producing  a  sensation,  viz.,  the  felt  sensa- 
tion, which  is  also  non-ego.  That  is,  we  should  have  immediate 
perception  of  two  non-egos — the  sensorium  excited,  and  the  object 
exciting  it  to  a  sensation.  This  is  possible,  but  it  must  be  shown 
to  be  necessary.  We  shall  show  in  its  place  (§  113),  that  exter- 
nality in  the  second  sense — i.  e.,  the  distinction  of  the  not-body 
from  the  body— is  discerned  not  by  an  original,  but  by  an  acquired 
perception.  If  this  is  true,  it  is  the  result,  not  of  a  single  act, 
but  of  a  series  of  processes. 

§  99.  The  sense  of  touch  is  the  most  positive  of  all 
toucfTtheiead-  the   senses   in  the    character   of  its   sensations.     In 

many  respects  it  is  worthy  to  be  called  the  leading 
sense.  The  sense-perceptions  which  it  gives,  and  those  which  are 
called  into  action  in  connection  with  it,  are  felt  on  every  part  of 


§99.  CLASSES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  125 

the  surface,  and  throughout  the  interior  of  the  body  and  all  its 
members.  The  sensations  themselves  are  the  most  energetic  of 
any  that  we  experience. 

Moreover,  the  organ  of  every  other  sense  is  also  an  organ 
of  touch,  and,  as  such,  is  more  or  less  sensitive.  We  touch  the 
food  which  we  taste,  and  unless  we  touch  it,  we  cannot  taste  it. 
Though  the  eye  does  not  literally  touch  the  undulating  light — * 
i.  e.,  in  response  to  the  touch  of  light,  gives  no  tactual  sensa- 
tions— yet  when  the  surface  of  the  eye  is  pressed  by  the  finger, 
or  strikes  against  any  solid  object,  it  feels  and  is  pained.  It  is 
also  acutely  sensitive  at  times  as  a  touching  organ.  The  inner 
surfaces  of  the  nostril  and  of  the  ear,  like  the  outer  surface  of 
the  body,  are-  susceptible  of  tactual  sensations.  All  of  these 
organs  are  more  or  less  completely  provided  with  a  muscular 
apparatus,  by  which  they  are  moved,  directed,  accommodated, 
and  made  more  ready  for  and  subservient  to  their  appropriate 
sensations.  Hence  the  tactual  and  muscular  sensations  are  very 
intimately  connected  with  seeing,  hearing,  smelling,  and  tasting. 
In  view  of  these  considerations,  it  was  said  long  ago  by  Demo- 
critus,  that  'all  the  senses  are  modifications  of  the  sense  of 
touch.' 

In  view  of  these  facts,  touch  has  been  called,  by  some  physiolo- 
gists, general  sensibility,  or  the  power  of  general  sensibility ;  and 
the  four  remaining  senses  have  been  called  the  special  senses. 

It  ought  not  to  surprise  us  to  learn  that  the  sense 
of  touch  furnishes  most  of  the  terms  for  the  intel-  SfliHerms?'" 
lectual  acts  and  states.  Sight  itself  is  indebted  to 
touch  for  many  of  its  term's.  We  take  or  apprehend  a  meaning; 
we  hold  an  opinion ;  we  comprehend  or  grasp  a  train  of  thought 
or  a  course  of  reasoning ;  we  accept  a  proposition.  Especially 
does  touch  furnish  the  words  for  those  acts  of  the  intellect  in 
which  the  feelings  and  the  will  have  a  share.  The  reason  is 
obvious.  We  touch  and  handle  objects  in  order  familiarly  to 
understand  their  properties  and  laws.  The  objects  which  we 
touch,  and  the  ways  we  touch  or  handle  them,  are  determined  very 
largely  by  our  feelings,  whether  of  curiosity  or  indifference,  of 
love  or  dislike,  of  caution  or  boldness.  All  these  feelings  are 
expressed  through  acts  appropriate  to  the  sense  of  touch,  or  by 
the  modes  of  using  its  principal  organs.  Hence  the  spiritual 


126  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  100. 

acts  or  states  generally,  are   expressed  by  terms   and   phrasei 
primarily  applied  to  this  class  of  bodily  activities. 

§  100.  The  sense  of  sight  is  the  last  which  we  are 

Sight;  its  organ  ........         .       , 

and  the  condi-  to  consider.     Ine  organ  ot  vision  is  the  eye.     Ihe 

tions  of  vision.  .      .  . 

eye  is  in  a  structure  like  an  optical  instrument,  and 
adapted  to  the  refraction  of  light  by  a  combination  of  lenses, 
and  to  the  production,  by  this  means,  of  a  distinct  miniature 
image  of  the  objects  seen  upon  the  retina,  i.  e.,  the  dark  network 
of  nerves  which  lines  the  inner  chamber.  This  image  can  be  seen 
in  the  eye  of  some  animals  if  separated  carefully  from  its  socket, 
and  divested  of  the  sclerotic  coating  behind.  The  surface  of  the 
eye  is  small  compared  with  that  of  the  organ  of  touch,  but  it  is 
susceptible  of  the  readiest  and  most  rapid  motions,  and  of  ad- 
justments of  position  and  direction  with  little  muscular  effort, 
and  as  little  muscular  sensation  as  is  sufficient  for  the  discrimina- 
tion and  regulation  of  its  motions.  This  susceptibility  of  easy  and 
swift  motion  and  adjustment  is  one  of  its  most  remarkable  physical 
features,  and  is  the  condition  of  its  marvellous  superiority. 

The  conditions  of  distinct  vision  are  a  proper  quantity  of  light, 
and  the  formation  of  a  well-refracted  image  upon  the  retina.  If 
the  light  is  deficient  or  excessive  in  quantity  or  intensity,  there 
can  be  no  distinct  vision.  There  is  a  particular  distance  for 
every  eye,  at  which  the  most  perfect  vision  of  a  near  object  can 
be  attained.  This  distance  varies  considerably,  from  that  of  the 
so-called  near-sighted,  to  that  of  the  far-sighted.  This  variety 
is  occasioned  by  a  difference  in  the  degree  of  the  convexity  in  the 
lenses  of  the  eyes  of  different  persons,  requiring  a  different  distance 
of  the  object  in  order  to  bring  the  rays  to  a  focus  upon  the  retina. 
There  is  in  every  case,  however,  a  certain  range  within  which  dis- 
tinct vision  may  be  had  by  a  more  or  less  constrained  adjustment 
of  the  retina  and  one  or  both  lenses,  through  certain  muscles 
provided  for  the  purpose.  The  muscular  sensations  experienced 
by  the  adjustments  of  the  eye  in  order  to  discern  objects  dis- 
tinctly, are  important  media  in  forming  and  applying  the 
acquired  perceptions.  In  order  that  the  vision  by  both  eyes  may 
be  single — and  it  must  be  single  to  be  distinct — the  two  axes 
must  be  steadily  fixed  upon  the  same  point ;  and  in  order  that 
they  may  be  fixed,  they  must  be  inclined  together.  The  muscu- 
lar sensations,  varying  with  the  different  adjustments  of  the  two 


§  100.  CLASSES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  127 

axes  are  important  in  the  acquired  perceptions  or  judgments  of 
vision. 

These  conditions  are  completed  or  finished  when 

A  Function   ol 

a  distinct  picture  on  the  retina  is  formed.     This  leads  the  image  o» 

.  .  .  the  retina. 

us  to  consider  the  Junction  oj  the  image  on  the  retina, 
or  its  relations  to  the  act  and  the  object  of  vision.  Concerning 
this  there  is  confusion  and  error  of  opinion.  The  mind  can  not 
see  the  image  on  the  retina.  If  it  could,  it  must  see  it  by  means 
of  another  image,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum.  Nor  does  it  perceive 
the  image  by  any  direct  act,  knowing  it  to  be  an  image  on  the 
retina.  It  does  not  know  that  there  is  a  retina,  till  the  anatomist 
or  the  optician  brings  this  fact  to  its  notice,  nor  does  it  know  of 
nerves,  or  nerve  endings,  or  nerve  expansions,  in  the  act  of 
seeing,  nor  can  it  in  any  other  way  be  aware  of  the  image  as  an 
image.  That  its  formation  is  essential  to  the  act  of  vision,  we 
know  by  physiological  researches,  but  not  in  psychical  ex- 
perience. Physiologically,  we  know  that  the  one  is  necessary  to 
the  other.  Psychically,  we  are  not  only  not  conscious  of  using 
it  as  a  known  means  of  the  act  of  seeing,  but  we  are  conscious 
that  we  do  not  employ  it  as  such  an  aid  or  means.  If  this  fact 
were  kept  in  mind,  serious  difficulties  in  the  explanation  of  the 
process  of  vision  would  be  set  aside.  For  example,  it  has  been 
often  asked,  How  can  we  see  objects  upright,  of  which  the 
images  on  the  retina  are  inverted  ?  How  can  we  see  objects  as 
single,  whose  images  are  double?  The  answer  to  questions  like 
these,  and  the  difficulties  which  they  involve,  is,  that  the  mind 
neither  knows  nor  uses  the  image  in  the  psychical  act.  It  is  by  a 
purely  physiological  analysis  that  it  subsequently  discovers  such  an 
image  as  the  last  member  or  link  in  the  series  of  physical  conditions. 

The  act  of  vision  as  a  sense-perception  includes  two  elements, 
the  sensational  and  the  perceptional. 

The  sensations  proper  from  light  and  colors  are      Sensation8 
scarcely  marked  in  our  conscious  experience  as  plea-  Pro°nPer  of  vl~ 
surable  or  painful.     Hence  they  are  feebly  obtrusive. 
They  rarely  if  ever  attract  the  attention  except  when  they  are 
painful  through  disease,  or  an  excess  of  energy  which  induces 
abnormal  action.     Some  colors,  however,  seem  to  give  a  positive 
sensuous  pleasure,  as  rich  violet  or  purple ;  and  a  series  of  yucli 
colors,  finely  blended,  occasions  extreme  satisfaction.     So  far  as 


128  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  101. 

this  is  aesthetic,  it  is  not  sensuous  at  all.  The  pleasure  from  form 
and  outline,  as  distinguished  from  color,  is  still  less  sensuous. 
These  facts  explain  why  it  is  that  the  sensations  of  vision  are 
less  definitely  located  in  the  sensorium,  and  why,  when  the  eye 
is  known  as  their  subject,  the  percepts  are  so  readily  detached 
from  the  eye  and  projected  before  it.  The  equally  unobtrusive 
character  of  the  muscular  sensations  which  are  experienced  in 
using  the  eye  contributes  to  the  same  result. 

§  101.  Vision  as  perception  proper  apprehends  il- 
Propere?n°vi-  luminated,  shaded,  and  colored  visibilia.  When  we 
JSof^MoaT  ca^  them  objects,  we  do  not  intend  that  they  are 

objects  in  the  sense  that  they  can  be  felt  or  handled, 
but  that  they  are  illuminated  and  colored  percepts,  set  over 
against  the  soul  by  itself,  and  distinguished  from  itself  by  its 
own  act  of  perception.  The  spectrum,  as  of  a  color  refracted  by 
the  prism,  or  of  a  flame  depicted  on  a  screen,  is  a  real  object  of 
vision.  So  is  the  image  that  seems  to  lurk  behind  a  mirror,  or 
to  lie  in  the  depth  of  a  glassy  pool.  The  colored  network  that  is 
projected  when  the  eyes  are  closed  is  an  object.  The  visible  percept 
is  always  colored.  When  we  say  it  is  colored,  we  include,  under 
color,  light  and  shade.  Darkness  even,  is  discerned  by  the  eye 
only  as  the  intensest  and  gravest  of  positive  colors. 

This  visual  object  is  always  extended.  The 
tend!days  ex~  colored  percept  is  an  extended  object,  and  it  cannot 

be  apprehended  as  colored  without  being  perceived 
as  extended  also.  Brown  (Lectures,  28,  9)  insists  most  earnestly 
that  the  extension  is  not  originally  given  in  the  sense-percep- 
tion of  color,  and  that  we  connect  the  two  only  because  of  an 
oft-experienced  and  inveterate  association  from  touch.  Dugald 
Stewart  (Elements)  sanctions  this  view.  James  Mill,  and  al- 
the  associationalists,  must  of  necessity  adopt  this  solution.  The 
following  suppositions  refute  the  doctrine :  If  two  or  more  band.-, 
of  color  are  beheld  by  the  infant  which  has  never  exercise*  I 
touch,  it  must  see  them  both  at  once  ;  and,  if  it  sees  them  both, 
it  must  see  them  as  expanded  or  extended ;  otherwise  it  could 
not  see  them  at  all,  nor  the  lines  of  transition  or  separation  be- 
tween them.  Or  if  a  disc  of  red  were  presented  in  the  midst  of, 
and  surrounded  by,  a  field  of  yellow  or  blue,  or  if  a  bright  band 
of  rcd  were  painted  so  as  to  return  as  a  circle  upon  itself  on 


§  101.  CLASSES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  129 

a  field  of  black,  the  band  could  not  be  traced  by  the  eye  without 
requiring  that  the  eye  should  contemplate  as  an  extended  percept 
the  included  surface  or  disc  of  red. 

The  object  of  vision  is,  however,  an  extended  Vi8ible  exten_ 
superficies  only.  By  vision  only,  a  sphere  is  per-  sum  superficial 
ceived  simply  as  a  delicately-shaded  circular  disc. 
A  cube  is  a  flat  surface  with  abruptly-shaded  portions,  bounded 
by  converging  lines.  If  we  draw  or  paint  from  nature,  we  do  it 
on  a  surface  perfectly  flat  or  even.  In  order  to  do  this  with 
truth,  we  must  first  see  the  object  as  without  obtruding  or 
receding  portions.  "  The  whole  technical  power  of  painting, 
says  Euskin,  depends  on  our  recovery  of  what  may  be  called  the 
innocence  of  the  eye  ;  that  is  to  say,  of  a  sort  of  a  childish  per- 
ception of  these  flat  stains  of  color  merely  as  such,  without  con- 
sciousness of  what  they  signify,  as  a  blind  man  would  see  them 
if  suddenly  gifted  with  sight."  (Elements  of  Drawing.} 

Indeed,  in  some  visible  objects  certain  of  these  original  aspects 
are  apparent  and  obtrusive,  and  we  cannot  substitute  the  reality 
for  the  appearance.  When,  for  example,  we  stand  at  the  end  of 
a  long  street,  the  lines  of  houses,  or  of  trees,  or  posts,  approach  one 
another  till  they  nearly  meet  in  a  point.  But  they  do  not  con- 
verge in  fact ;  they  are  exactly  parallel. 

It  has  been  insisted  by  some  that  the  eye  perceives  more  than 
superficial  extension — that  we  discern  by  vision,  depth,  or  the 
third  dimension ;  that  the  eye,  as  it  were,  sees  around  •  a  sphere, 
or  along  the  receding  sides  of  a  cube.  An  appeal  is  confidently 
made  to  Wheats  tone's  discoveries  in  respect  to  binocular  vision, 
and  the  application  of  the  same  in  the  stereoscope.  The  conclu- 
sion very  far  outruns  the  data  from  which  it  is  derived.  The 
objects  seen  through  the  stereoscope  are  not  in  relief,  but  are  in 
a  superficies  or  plane.  ]STo  third  dimension  exists,  but  the  usual 
signs  of  its  presence  are  so  striking,  that  the  mind  leaps  for  the 
instant  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  there  in  fact.  The  experiment 
of  the  stereoscope  is  so  far  from  confirming  the  view  that  the 
third  dimension  is  actually  seen,  that  it  shows  most  decisively 
that  it  cannot  be,  by  effecting  an  illusion,  which  is  well-nigh  per- 
fect, by  means  of  objects  drawn  and  actually  seen  upon  a  plane. 

The  question  has  been  very  frequentlv  and  verv 

,         v  .        .  MIT  i         A  single  object 

earnestly  discussed,      How    is    it  possible  that  the  seen  with  two 
mind  should  apprehend  but  a  single  object  by  means 

6* 


130  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  101. 

of  two  eyes  ?"  The  question  has  been  variously  answered  by 
physiologists.  Some  have  insisted  that  one  eye  only  is  in  fact 
used  in  the  act  of  vision,  the  office  of  the  second  being  to 
strengthen  or  reinforce  the  nervous  or  physiological  action  of  the 
first.  Others  teach  that  the  mind  beholds  two  objects  in  fact, 
but  passes  so  readily  from  the  one  to  the  other,  as  in  effect  to  ap- 
prehend only  one.  Others  have  sought  to  solve  the  problem  by 
tracing  the  impressions  made  upon  the  corresponding  parts  of 
each  retina,  through  the  corresponding  nerves  of  each,  to  a  com- 
mon blending  or  meeting-place  in  the  organism,  where  the  two 
are  fused  into  one.  So  far  as  these  facts  are  purely  physiologi- 
cal, if  they  are  to  throw  any  light  on  the  psychical  act  or  object, 
they  must  assume  that  the  mind  performs  the  act  by  a  conscious 
recognition  of  the  retina,  or  the  nervous  apparatus,  which  cannot 
be  admitted  as  true. 

The  psychical  act  is  occupied  with  a  visible  object,  which, 
as  has  been  explained,  is  colored  extension.  It  sometimes  hap- 
pens that,  in  consequence  of  a  diseased  or  abnormal  condition  of 
the  eye  or  its  nervous  apparatus,  the  mind  perceives  two  objects, 
when  it  ought  to  perceive  but  one.  How  is  this  to  be  explained, 
and  what  light  does  the  fact  shed  upon  the  relation  of  vision 
with  one  eye,  to  vision  with  two  ?  We  answer  :  In  double  vision 
the  mind  beholds  two  similar  objects  in  two  situations.  In  single 
vision  two  percepts  are  perceived  in  the  same  part  of  the  field 
of  view.  They  must  necessarily  coincide.  If  the  one  overlaps 
the  other,  the  one  must  strengthen  the  other. 

The  question  also  suggests  itself,   Where,  in  rela- 


visible  tion  to  the  retina  or  the  eye,  is  the  visible  object 
\i.  e.y  the  variously-colored  plane  or  disc  first  appre- 
hended] placed  in  the  original  act  of  vision  :  is  it  in  the  retina 
itself,  or  in  the  front  of  the  eye?  or  is  it  projected  in  space  —  say 
at  the  proper  focal  distance  before  the  eye?  The  question,  in  all 
its  forms,  supposes  a  more  extensive  or  a  more  matured  knowledge 
of  space,  distance,  and  position  than  the  mind  can  possess  when  it 
begins  to  see. 

Position,  or  place,  as  applied  to  perceived  objects,  is  relative. 
It  supposes  some  objects  to  be  fixed  as  starting-points,  and  others 
as  standards  of  measuring  or  estimating  distance  from  them. 
None  such  can  be  definitely  fixed  and  familiar  before  the  not-body 


of 


§  102.  CLASSES   OP  SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  131 

is  distinguished  from  the  body,  and  before  the  hand,  the  eye,  and 
the  parts  of  the  external  body  have  been  fixed  in  their  relative 
positions.  The  vague  knowledge  of  extended  matter  which  the 
sensorium  gives  must  first  be  made  definite  by  a  bounding  out- 
line; and  the  most  familiar  extra-organic  objects  must  first  be 
placed  apart  from  one  another,  before  the  eye  or  the  retina  can 
be  known  as  the  instrument  of  vision,  or  either  can  be  distin- 
guished as  the  place  or  the  seat  of  the  sense-percept.  Long 
before  these  cognitions  are  attained,  the  sense-percept  seen  by  the 
eye  will  have  been  carried  by  the  hand  into  the  space  without 
the  body,  and  irrecoverably  connected  with  its  correspondent 
touch-percepts,  in  the  way  hereafter  to  be  described. 

§  102.  The  superiority  of  the  eye  to   the  other 
senses  is  owing  in  part  to  the  unobtrusive  delicacy  of 
its  sensations.     They  do  not  occupy  the  attention  and          eye> 
detain  it  from  the  object  itself  and  its  relations.     The  force  and 
tension  of  the  soul's  activity  are  given  to  these.     Vision  is  capa- 
ble  of  far  finer   discriminations   than   touch.     A   hair  of  the 
diameter  of  .002  of  an  inch  can  be  distinctly  seen. 

The  eye  can  also  pass  from  one  object  to  another  with  a  swift- 
ness which  none  of  the  other  organs  can  imitate.  In  so  doing, 
it  can  place  data  at  the  service  of  the  intellect  as  quickly 
as  the  intellect  can  use  them,  however  rapid  may  be  its  move- 
ments. By  its  swift  and  wide-reaching  motions  it  can  imitate 
the  slower  and  limited  motions  of  the  hand,  drawing  outlines, 
constructing  figures,  measuring  distances,  combining  groups  and 
elements,  with  surprising  rapidity  and  precision.  The  cultivated 
eye  sweeps  across  a  landscape,  and  in  an  instant  the  mind 
computes  the  size  and  distance  of  its  principal  objects,  and  unites 
them  together  within  a  frame-work  of  mathematical  relations. 
The  minuteness  of  the  observed  distinctions,  the  vividness  of  the 
contrasts,  the  cheerfulness  of  the  colors,  the  stimulus  of  the  light, 
the  sharpness  of  the  outlines,  enable  the  mind  to  hold  fast  its 
perceptions,  to  recall  them  vividly  and  at  will,  and  to  employ 
them  for  science,  art,  or  practical  life.  The  eye  has  always  been 
estimated  as  the  noblest  of  the  senses;  and  many  of  the  words 
which  describe  the  actions  of  the  pure  intellect,  as  to  see,  to  per- 
ceive, to  discern,  are  taken  -apparently  from  this  sense,  though 
perhaps  all  are  finally  to  be  traced  to  the  sense  of  touch. 


THE   HUMA.N   INTELLECT. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE   ACQUIRED   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS. 

§  103.  Thus  far  in  our  inquiries  we  have  considered 
of  the  senses  singly.  We  have  ieen  that  by 
each  of  these  we  gain  peculiar  knowledge.  We  per- 
ceive sights  only  by  the  eye,  and  sounds  only  by 
the  ear.  In  connection  with  these  Diverse  objects,  we  apprehend 
certain  relations  common  to  all,  viz.,  externality  and  extension. 
In  other  words,  by  each  of  the  organs  we  experience  a  determinate 
sensation,  and  apprehend  an  object  that  is  both  extended,  and 
also  distinguishable  from  the  sentient  and  perceiving  mind. 

But  the  range  of  our  sense-perceptions  is  far  wider  than  this. 
We  early  learn  to  use  one  sense  in  place  of  another,  or  of  several, 
and  to  apply  the  knowledge  which  is  given  by  one,  in  place 
of  that  which  belongs  to  one  or  more  of  those  which  are  unused. 
Thus,  if  I  go  into  a  darkened  room  and  perceive  a  peculiar 
fragrance,  I  know  and  say  there  is  a  rose  or  a  tuberose  in  the 
apartment-^though  I  can  see  or  handle  neither.  If  I  hear  a 
sound,  I  know  it  is  from  a  piano,  a  guitar,  or  the  human  voice, 
and  I  know  the  direction  from  which  it  comes,  and  from  how 
great  a  distance.  If  I  look  at  an  iron  that  is  at  glowing  white 
heat,  I  say,  It  looks  hot ;  though  heat  is  properly  felt. 

The  t'iTO  classes  of  sense-perceptions  thus  characterized  are  the 
original  and  the  acquired.  They  are  thus  defined  .  An  original 
perception  is  one  that  is  gained  by  a  single  sense,  when  exercised 
alone;  of  an  object,  or  in  respect  to  its  relations.  An  acquired 
perception  is  gained  by  using  the  knowledge  given  directly  by  one 
sense,  as  the  sign  or  evidence  of  the  knowledge  which  we  might 
gain  by  another. 

The  importance  of  the    acquired   perceptions    is 

Importance  .  „         „  «  . 

and  time  of     manifest  from  the  greater  frequency  with  winch   we 

fciulrfd  per-    bring  them  into  use,  and  the  confidence  with  which 

we  rely  on  them,  as  well  as  from  their  greater  con* 

venience.    Thus,  a  man  strikes  with  a  hammer  upon  the  head  of 


§104.  THE   ACQUIRED   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  133 

a  barrel,  and  knows  in  an  instant  whether  it  is  full  or  empty, 
without  the  trouble  of  opening  it.  A  surgeon  applies  his  ear  to 
the  breast  of  his  patient,  and  determines  whether  the  lungs  or 
heart  are  diseased,  where,  and  how  far.  An  architect,  by  a 
glance  of  the  eye,  sees  whether  the  framing  of  a  bridge  or  roof 
is  safe  ;  or  he  measures  off  the  dimensions  of  its  parts  by  the  eye 
as  accurately  as  he  could  by  his  hand,  or  an  instrument. 

The  time  when  many  of  the  acquired  perceptions  are  gained, 
Is  very  early.  The  most  important,  and  those  which  are  uni- 
versally applied,  are  made  in  infancy,  at  a  period  earlier  than 
the  memory  can  recall,  and  by  processes  which  the  memory  can- 
not untwine,  nor  any  subtle  analysis  easily  resolve.  Others, 
which  are  commenced  in  infancy,  are  perfected  in  youth  and 
early  manhood.  Many  are  not  complete  till  the  senses  through 
age  begin  to  fail,  and  the  attention  becomes  less  energetic  and 
agile.  We  begin  the  education  of  the  senses  in  the  earliest  mo- 
ments of  infancy.  The  artist,  the  mechanic,  the  musician,  and 
the  observer  of  nature,  never  finish  it  till  the  organs  refuse  to 
aid  and  to  serve  the  observing  mind. 

Many  of  these  acquisitions  are  made  so  early,  that  they  cannot 
be  distinguished  from  the  original  teachings  of  nature.  In  very 
many,  the  process  is  performed  so  rapidly  that  it  is  difficult  for 
us  to  believe  that  the  mind  goes  through  any  process  at  all,  the 
knowledge  comes  so  simply  and  directly. 

It  is  more  convenient  to  begin  with  those  which  have  been 
made  within  our  memory,  of  which  the  stages  and  the  means  are 
within  our  view  and  at  our  command.  We  may  afterward  ven- 
ture to  unravel  the  more  delicate  tissues  that  have  been  wrought 
by  the  finer  and  more  dexterous  arts  of  infancy,  in  that  early 
yet  mysterious  period  when  Heaven  lies  close  about  us,  and 
seems  to  direct  the  movements  of  the  soul. 

§  104.  The  acquired  perceptions  of  smell  and  of 
hearing  invite  our  first  attention,  because  they  can  p^'pSo9™1!? 
be  most  readily  explained.     Our  first  examples  are  hearing  and 
of  odors.     We  experience  the  sensations  of  smell,  as 
from  a  lily  or  tuberose,  from  camphor  or  musk.     We  ascribe 
them  to  certain  objects  of  given  appearance  and  structure,  with- 
out the  use  of  che  sight  or  the  touch  by  which  the  appearance 
»r  structure  is  directly  discerned.     The  ground  of  this  confident 


134  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  105. 

knowledge  is  experience.  There  is  no  reason  a  priori,  why  the 
fragrance  of  the  tuberose  should  not  proceed  from  the  lily,  and 
the  fragrance  of  the  lily  from  the  tuberose ;  no  known  cause 
why  camphor  and  musk  should  not  interchange  their  odors. 
We  have  simply  learned  by  experience,  that  in  all  cases  where 
the  sensation  is  experienced,  a  certain  object  is  present. 

We  do  the  same  with  sounds.  We  hear  a  sound,  and  believe 
ihat  it  comes  from  a  bell.  We  hear  another,  and  know  it  is 
from  a  drum ;  another  still,  and  say,  There  goes  a  cart,  or  a 
coach.  Each  of  these  sounds  we  ascribe  to  its  appropriate  object 
with  positive  certainty,  on  the  ground  of  simple  experience. 

We  not  only  learn  in  this  way  the  objects  which  occasion 
smells  and  sounds,  but  we  learn  the  place  and  direction  of  both. 
This  is  especially  true  of  sounds.  We  know  whether  a  ringing 
bell  is  on  our  right,  or  on  our  left ;  whether  it  is  high,  or  low : 
whether  a  military  band  is  far,  or  near  ;  whether  it  approaches 
or  recedes.  That  knowledge  of  this  kind  is  founded  on  experi- 
ence only,  is  obvious  from  the  fact,  that  when  the  usual  or  the 
assumed  conditions  or  occasions  of  our  knowledge  are  changed, 
we  are  mistaken  in  respect  to  the  place,  direction,  and  distance 
of  a  sound,  and  that  mistakes  in  respect  to  these  lead  to  error  in 
regard  to  the  object  which  occasions  it.  The  beating  of  our  own 
hearts  may  be  mistaken  for  a  knocking  at  the  door  ;  the  tramp- 
ling of  horses  in  a  neighboring  stable,  arid  the  cutting  of  wood 
in  a  neighboring  cellar,  may  be  thought  to  be  within  our  own 
dwelling.  The  rattling  of  a  cart  on  a  bridge  may  be  mistaken 
for  distant  thunder  ;  the  humming  of  a  mosquito,  for  a  distant 
cry  of  alarm,  or  the  s~ound  of  a  trumpet. 

§  105.  The  acquired  perceptions  of  sight  are  still 
ctptqio1n?ofper"  more  numerous  and  interesting.  These  divide  them- 
Judged^yS  selves  into  several  classes.  The  first  of  these  are  the 
judgments  of  distance  by  size.  If  we  know  the  real 
magnitude  of  an  object,  we  judge  how  far  distant  it  is  by  means 
of  its  apparent  magnitude.  If  we  hold  any  familiar  object,  as 
a  globe  two  feet  in  diameter,  near  the  eye,  and  then  remove  it 
glowly,  it  will  dwindle  away  first  to  an  inconsiderable  ball,  and 
then  to  a  mere  speck.  If  we  know  its  real  size,  we  judge  by  its 
apparent  magnitude  how  far  it  is  actually  removed.  So  true  is 
this,  that  from  a  magnitude  that  is  falsely  assumed,  we  mistake 


§  105.  THE   ACQUIRED  SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  135 

as  to  the  real  distance,  and  are  as  confident  and  as  prompt  in  oui 
mistaken  perception  as  though  the  data  and  the  inference  were 
both  correct. 

Let  a  person  look  over  the  coping  of  a  wall,  or  the  ridge  of  an 
intervening  building,  and  see  only  the  spire  of  a  miniature 
church — say  of  a  bird-house — and  believe  it  to  be  attached  to  a 
real  church,  and  he  will  at  once  see  it  as  a  very  distant  spire. 

Second :  We  iudge   of  magnitude   by  the  assumed 

•'  *          .  Judgments  of 

distance.     When  we  have  a  correct  impression  of  the  magnitude  by 

f,  •  •  distance. 

distance  of  objects,  we  perceive  them  in  lull  size. 
We  every  day  see  men  and  other  objects  at  long  distances 
greatly  diminished  and  dwarfed,  and  yet  we  do  not  perceive  or 
judge  them  to  be  smaller  than  they  really  are.  A  lofty  building 
viewed  at  a  very  great  distance,  or  a  tall  ship  far  off  at  sea,  will 
even  seem  loftier  than  when  viewed  from  a  position  very  near, 
from  which  the  beholder  looks  upward,  without  distance  and 
other  aids  by  which  to  judge  of  their  height.  The  most  impress- 
ive judgments  of  the  height  of  the  loftiest  mountains  and  edifices 
are  gained  by  seeing  them  at  a  great  distance  over  an  intervening 
plain. 

Third:  If  the  magnitude  is  unknown,  or  not  con- 
sidered, we  judge  of  distance  by  means  of  the  intensity 
of  the  color,  the  sharpness  of  the  outline,  and  the  rela- 
tive  clearness  or  confusion  of  the  distinguishable 
parts.  For  example,  should  we  view,  through  a  tube,  several 
trees  of  the  same  species,  as  the  elm,  the  maple,  or  the  oak,  re- 
moved at  different  distances  from  one  another,  the  nearest*  would 
be  known  by  its  brighter  green,  its  more  sharply  defined  outline, 
and  its  more  clearly  distinguished  leaves  and  branches.  By 
these  circumstances,  designated  technically  as  "atmosphere,1" 
painters  produce  the  effect  of  nearness  or  distance,  with  accesso- 
ries of  relative  magnitude  and  of  more  or  fewer  intervening 
objects. 

The  traveler  in  Italy,  especially  when  he  goes  directly  from 
England,  judges  the  mountains  to  be  far  nearer  than  they  are  in 
fact.  The  atmosphere  is  so  much  more  transparent  than  that  to 
which  he  is  accustomed,  as  to  reveal  the  outlines  and  face  of  the 
mountains  so  distinctly  that  he  cannot  believe  them  to  be  as 
distant  as  they  are. 


136  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  105. 

Fourth:  We  judge  also  of  the  size  of  objects,  by 
s£  gb?e other  comparing  them  with  other  objects  which  are  or  seem 
equidistant  ob-  ^  ^  ai  ^^  distance  from  ourselves.  If  the  size 

or  distance  of  our  standard  of  comparison  is  incor- 
rectly taken,  we  misjudge  altogether.  Dr.  Abercrombie  (Intel- 
lectual Powers)  tells  us  that,  on  going  up  Ludgate  Hill  toward 
the  great  door  of  St.  Paul's  which  was  open,  he  took  several 
persons  who  were  standing  under  the  opening  to  be  children, 
whom  he  found,  on  coming  up  to  them,  to  be  full-grown  men. 
The  reason  was,  that  he  assumed  the  height  of  the  door  to  be 
less  than  it  really  was,  and.  by  this  false  standard,  he  misjudged 
the  size  of  the  persons  who  stood  under  it. 

Fifth:  Our  iudqments  of  distance  vary  according 

Influence  of  J       y  J  .  J.. 

intermediate  as  there  are  more  or  jewer  intermediate  objects.  Ub- 
jects  seen  across  the  land  seem  further  than  objects 
at  the  same  distance  seen  across  the  water.  A  given  expanse 
of  the  sea  is  greatly  enlarged  to  the  eye  when  a  score  or  two  of 
vessels  are  anchored  at  different  distances  along  its  surface.  A 
level  meadow  or  prairie,  with  copses,  trees,  and  dwellings  inter- 
spersed, seems  far  more  extended  than  without  them.  A  salt 
marsh,  when  dotted  with  haystacks,  seems  wider  than  at  the 
season  when  they  are  removed. 

Sixth:  Intermediate  objects,  by  affecting  our  judgments  of  dis- 
tance, affect  our  judgments  of  size.  The  sun  and  moon  appear  larger 
when  near  the  horizon  than  when  toward  the  zenith.  Through 
the  influence  of  intervening  objects  and  the  dimming  influence 
of  the*  atmosphere,  they  are  removed  to  a  greater  distance,  and 
then  judged  to  be  larger.  The  sky  itself,  for  this  reason,  is  not 
the  half  of  a  sphere,  but  a  section  of  which  the  height  is  shorter 
than  half  the  base. 

When  the  ordinary  standards  of  judgment  are  withdrawn,  and 
our  accustomed  processes  cannot  be  applied,  we  are  either  greatly 
embarrassed,  and  even  bewildered,  or  we  fall  into  serious  and 
amusing  errors.  Captain  Parry  says  •  "  We  had  frequent  occa- 
sion, in  our  walks  on  shore,  to  remark  the  deception  which  takes 
place  in  estimating  the  distance  and  magnitude  of  objects  over 
an  unvaried  surface  of  snow.  It  was  not  uncommon  for  us  to 
direct  our  steps  toward  what  we  took  to  be  a  large  mass  of  stone 
at  the  distance  of  half  a  mile  from  us,  but  which  we  were  able 


§  106.  THE  ACQUIRED   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  137 

to  take  up  in  our  hands  after  one  minute's  walk.     This  was  more 
particularly  the  case  when  ascending  the  brow  of  the  hill." 
§  106.  By  means  of  sight  we  acquire  perceptions 

J  Judgments  ol 

appropriate  to  the  touch.  When  we  look  at  a  sphere,  form,  etc.,  by 
we  see  by  the  eye  only  a  circular  disc  on  which  the 
transitions  of  color  or  of  light  and  shade  blend  so  finely  with  one 
another,  that  we  know  if  we  grasp  it  with  our  hands  we  shall 
feel  it  to  be  spherical  in  form.  A  sphere  may  be  so  skilfully 
painted  in  fresco  on  a  flat  surface,  that  we  actually  take  it  to  be 
a  sphere  in  fact.  We  often  seem  to  see  projecting  statues,  gradu- 
ated mouldings,  depressed  panels,  receding  corridors,  vaulted 
domes ;  and  yet  as  we  approach,  we  find  only  a  plane  surface. 

When  the  blind  from  birth  are  restored  to  sight,  they  come 
into  a  new  world,  of  the  percepts  of  which,  and  their  relations  to 
the  percepts  already  familiar  to  their  touch,  they  have  had  no 
previous  knowledge.  They  must  therefore  go  through  a  special 
discipline  in  order  to  connect  the  well  known  objects  of  touch 
with  the  newly  acquired  experiences  of  the  eye.  Thus  the  blind 
boy  whose  sight  was  restored  by  Cheselden  could  not  call  the  cat 
and  dog  by  their  right  names,  or  could  not  tell  which  was  the 
cat  and  which  was  the  dog.  He  could  not  avoid  distinguishing 
them  by  the  eye,  but  he  had  not  learned  to  connect  the  dog  and 
cat  as  handled — to  the  appropriate  forms  of  which  he  had 
attached  the  names — with  the  dog  and  cat  which  he  saw,  so  as  to 
be  able  to  feel  them  by  means  of  his  eyes.  Finding  himself  one 
day  at  fault,  he  carefully  felt  of  the  cat  with  his  hands,  his  eyes 
being  shut,  and  set  her  down,  exclaiming,  "  So,  puss,  I  shall  know 
you  another  time."  The  question  has  been  often  asked  (cf. 
Locke,  Essay,  B.  ii.  c.  ix.  §  8),  whether  a  blind  man,  on  being 
restored  to  sight,  would  know  a  cube  from  a  sphere.  It  is 
obvious  that,  so  far  as  mere  vision  is  concerned,  he  could  not 
but  distinguish  the  two  objects  as  soon  as  he  attended  to  them 
with  the  eye.  What  he  would  need  to  acquire  would  be  the 
capacity  readily  to  connect  the  visible  with  the  tangible  cube 
and  sphere. 

In  the  examples  which  have  been  cited,  we  translate  the  per* 
ceptions  given  by  sight  into  those  which  are  derived  from  touch. 
The  proposition  is  sometimes  broadly  and  positively  laid  down, 


138  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  106k 

that  from  the  touch  is  derived  all  perception  whatever  of  form, 
distance,  and  magnitude ;  inasmuch  as  in  all  cases,  we  must  coins 
back  to  the  touch  as  furnishing  the  ultimate  standard.  The 
position  is  sometimes  stated  thus :  All  visible  extension  must  be 
reduced  to  that  which  is  tangible.  These  propositions  need  to  be 
somewhat  qualified,  if  we  hold  that  we  can  perceive  superficia. 
extension  by  the  sight.  They  are  true  to  the  letter  of  all  those 
perceptions  which  involve  the  relation  of  depth,  or  the  third 
dimension  of  space ;  but  to  all  judgments  of  superficial  form 
and  dimensions  they  cannot  literally  apply.  To  the  blind,  how- 
ever, touch  furnishes  the  only  possible  standard  of  definite  form, 
distance  and  size. 

The  blind  man  applies  his  finger,  his  hand,  or  his  arm,  to 
every  object  which  he  encounters,  and  measures  its  size  by  any  of 
these  standards.  But  those  who  see,  perceive  objects  extended 
superficially.  Why,  then,  may  they  also  not  apply  any  of  these 
objects  as  units  of  measurement,  and  as  standards  by  which  to 
judge  of  form  and  size?  We  reply,  they  may,  and  would  do  so 
always,  if  what  is  called  the  apparent  magnitude  of  the  standard, 
and  of  the  object  to  which  it  is  applied,  did  not  constantly 
change  as  the  two  are  near  or  remote.  A  yard-stick  or  a  foot- 
rule  may  be  so  far  removed  from  the  eye,  as  to  measure  to  the 
eye  no  more  than  a  foot  or  an  inch  respectively.  Even  though 
the  standard  is  unaltered  in  its  position,  the  object  measured  may, 
by  being  itself  carried  near  or  far,  measure  a  foot,  a  yard,  or  a 
rod.  We  can  only  be  satisfied  that  the  standard  and  its  objects 
coincide,  when  we  bring  the  standard  in  actual  contact  with  the 
object  by  the  hand.  But  even  then  we  use  the  eye,  in  order 
to  be  certain  that  the  two  coincide.  The  hand  of  the  blind, 
however  surprising  may  be  its  delicacy  of  touch,  can  never 
attain  the  fineness  of  the  eye  in  discerning  exact  adjustments. 
Give  the  practiced  eye  an  assurance  that  its  distances  are  correctly 
taken,  and  it  will  measure  and  judge  with  marvellous  accuracy. 
It  is  a  circumstance  which  is  worthy  of  attention,  and  certainly 
ought  not  in  this  connection  to  be  overlooked,  that  the  point  of 
distance  from  the  eye  at  which  vision  is  usually  most  satisfac- 
tory, coincides  with  that  at  which  the  hand  can  most  conve* 
niently  handle  and  hold  an  object. 


§  107.  THE   ACQUIRED   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  139 

§  107.  It  is  by  the  acquired  perceptions  that  we 
definitely  assign  the  places  of  our  sensations  to  the 
different  parts  of  the  body. 

All  the  sense-perceptions  must  be  known  to  have  JJ^iu  the 
some  place  in  the  sensorium,  though  the  limits  of 
the  place  may  not  be  definitely  drawn,  and  the  relative  positions 
of  each  perception  may  not  be  exactly  fixed.  Whatever  is  in- 
volved in  such  a  perception  taken  singly,  is  an  original  percep- 
tion. Whatever  is  added  or  superinduced  by  combining  several 
perceptions,  is  acquired  by  experience.  For  example :  an  adult 
person  has  a  pain  in  one  of  his  teeth,  he  does  not  know  which — 
or  a  cut  in  a  part  of  his  arm,  he  does  not  know  exactly  where. 
If  he  touches  the  tooth  with  his  tongue,  or  if  he  discovers  in  a 
mirror  which  tooth  is  defective,  he  ascertains  which  is  the  one 
affected ;  he  learns  as  we  say,  where  the  pain  is. 

That  much  of  this  knowledge  is  acquired,  is  evident  from  some 
cases  of  lesion  in  different  parts  of  the  body,  and  of  the  loss 
of  a  limb  by  amputation.  A  man  who  has  no  foot,  will  feel 
pain  in  the  foot.  Why  ?  Because  he  experiences  precisely  the 
same  sensations  which  he  suffered  when  he  had  the  foot,  and 
knew  it  was  the  seat  of  the  pain.  But  if  he  had  never  had  a 
foot,  he  would  never  have  assigned  pain  to  it;  for  he  would 
never  have  had  the  means  by  eye  or  hand  or  muscular  sensations, 
of  connecting  these  sense-perceptions  with  it. 

It  is  also  by  the  acquired  perceptions  that  we  learn  to  regulate 
and  control  the  movements  of  the  body.  Man  was  made  to  move. 
When  the  soul,  so  to  speak,  finds  the  body,  it  finds  it  in  motion. 
Not  only  is  this  true,  but  the  body  is,  by  its  very  structure, 
adapted  to  certain  specific  motions,  as  of  walking,  speaking,  and 
singing,  all  having  definite  relation  either  to  its  present  or  its 
future  wants  or  enjoyments.  These  bodily  capacities  the  soul 
acquires  the  power  to  use  in  definite  ways  for  special  ends.  The 
motions  to  which  nature  prompts,  the  intellect  learns  to  control 
and  regulate,  so  as  to  bring  to  pass  determinate  results.  A  more 
particular  consideration  of  this  subject  presents  two  separate 
questions :  What  does  nature  provide  f  and  Sow  does  the  intellect 
ly  these  provisions  of  nature  f 

We  ask,  first :    What  does  nature  provide  f 


140  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §107. 

We  have  already  adverted  to  the  fact,  that  with 

The  provisions  J 

of  nature  for     the  sentient  nerves  which  conditionate  sensation,  there 

those  ends* 

are  provided  the  reflex  motor  which  impel  to  motion. 
In  obedience  to  the  stimulus  furnished  by  the  one,  there  is 
awakened  in  the  other  an  unbidden  and  often  an  uncontrollable 
tendency  to  motion.  Consciousness  need  not,  and  often  does,  not 
intervene.  Thus,  we  wink  in  response  to  the  stimulus  of  light ; 
the  flesh  quivers  and  withdraws  itself  from  the  knife;  the 
muscles  knit  themselves  into  convulsions  and  cramps.  Under 
the  same  law,  the  excitements  being  diverse,  the  heart  beats,  the 
lungs  expand,  and  other  involuntary  motions  are  performed 
These  functions  and  operations  relate  to  the  body,  and  their 
effects  terminate  in  its  well-being. 

There  are  other  movements  that  are  connatural  and  at  first  in- 
voluntary, which  the  intellect  has  the  power  to  apprehend  and 
the  will  to  control.  Such  are  the  muscular  efforts  that  are 
involved  in  speaking,  singing,  and  walking,  and  in  feats  of  skill 
or  dexterity.  Many  of  these  relate  to  the  soul  as  well  as  to  the 
body,  in  the  way  of  use  or  enjoyment.  Some  of  them  are  made 
ready  for  the  spirit  against  the  time  when  it  shall  be  sufficiently 
developed  to  apply  them  with  intelligence  and  design.  To  all 
these  movements  the  stimulant  comes  not  from  without,  but  from 
within.  When  the  infant  weeps  from  pain,  and  laughs  and 
shouts  from  delight,  it  is  under  an  excitement  proceeding 
directly  from  the  soul,  that  the  muscles  are  moved  to  laughter 
and  to  tears.  In  the  same  way,  every  emotion  seeks  and  finds 
expression  by  attitudes,  looks,  and  gestures. 

In  the  same  way  man  is  prompted  to  speech :  first  to  inarticu- 
late cries  expressing  emotion  only,  and  then  to  articulate  lan- 
guage and  words  significant  of  definite  thought.  Nature  pro- 
vides for  all  this,  by  making  man  capable  of  a  limited  rangs 
of  vocal  sounds,  through  the  action  of  those  muscles  that  move 
the  larynx ;  and  nature  prompts  to  the  use  of  these  muscles  in 
various  ways,  according  to  the  varying  excitements  of  feeling 
and  thought.  To  very  many,  if  not  to  all  of  these  effects,  the 
consentient  action  of  many  muscles  is  required.  For  this 
nature  provides,  by  so  arranging  the  structure  of  the  nerves 
through  which  these  consentient  muscles  are  excited,  that,  under 
the  stimulus  of  feeling  or  thought,  those  needed,  and  those  alone, 


§  107.  THE   ACQUIRED   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  141 

shall  be  aroused  to  the  united  activities  which  conspire  to  the 
single  effect  which  is  required. 

Not  only  does  nature  provide  for  the  conspiring  action  of  sev- 
eral muscles  to  one  effect,  but  she  even  arranges  for  and  prompts 
to  the  combined  action  of  different  parts  of  the  body  in  obedience 
to  a  single  impulse.  In  order  to  make  progress  by  walking,  each 
leg  must  alternately  advance  and  wait  for  the  other.  To  these  al- 
ternate motions  there  is  an  original  impulse.  These  are  movements 
which  the  infant  makes  long  before  it  begins  to  walk.  The  arms, 
on  the  other  hand,  tend  to  move  together.  So  do  the  fingers.  It- 
is  difficult,  and  sometimes  impossible,  by  any  effort  to  bring 
certain  of  the  fingers  to  a  separate  action.  But  it  is  in  the  eyes 
that  this  tendency  to  joint  action  is  most  conspicuous.  The  eyes 
will  persistently  move  together  in  the  same  direction.  They 
cannot  be  forced  to  act  apart.  One  eye  cannot  by  any  violence 
be  made  to  look  upward  while  the  other  is  directed  downward. 
Nor  will  one  tend  to  the  right,  and  the  other  to  the  left. 

Even  more  than  this  is  true.  There  seems  to  be,  so  to  speak, 
a  natural  aptitude  for  the  joint  action  of  organs  that  are  not 
paired  together,  but  which  yet  are  fitted  to  aid  one  another  in 
important  uses.  This  is  preeminently  true  of  the  eye  and  the 
hand.  The  eye  must  lead  the  hand,  and  the  hand  follow  the 
eye,  in  a  multitude  of  actions.  When  we  would  touch  or  grasp 
a  small  object  at  the  first  trial,  the  eye  must  guide.  When  we 
would  strike  it  with  a  stick  which  we  hold,  or  with  a  projectile, 
the  eye  must  conspire  with  a  fixed  and  earnest  gaze.  There 
must  be  some  physiological  reason  for  this  concurrent  action  of 
nerves  and  muscles  connected  with  two  organs,  though  it  has 
not  yet  been  discovered. 

We  ask,  second :  How  does  the  intellect  apply  what  nature  pro- 
vides. 

The  intellect  finds  itself  furnished  with  this  cor- 
poreal instrument,  and  actually  using  it  under  the 
promptings  of  nature ;  it  finds  it  laughing,  or  weep- 
ing,  speaking,  and  walking,  under  the  promptings 
of  nature,  and  it  acquires  the  power  of  directing  these  activities 
in  particular  methods  and  to  certain  definite  results,  and  of  doing 
this  so  readily,  that  it  does  not  notice  its  own  processes,  or  advert 
to   the  elements    of  which    these  processes    consist.     First,   it 


142  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  107. 

observes  the  muscular  sensations  which  are  employed  when 
certain  effects  occur,  and  the  effects  it  observes  by  the  appropri- 
ate sense-perceptions.  It  experiments  upon  these,  and  notices 
how  the  sensations  which  are  connected  with  the  varying  use 
of  its  muscles  are  connected  with  varying  effects.  Then  it 
tentatively  and  designedly  repeats  the  effect  which  it  has  chanced 
to  produce,  or  it  seeks  to  imitate  the  effect  which  another  has  ac- 
complished ;  e.  g.,  to  utter  a  sound,  to  refrain  from  laughter  of 
from  weeping,  to  walk  slowly  or  rapidly,  or  with  a  particular 
gait.  By  repetition  of  the  effort,  the  effect  is  produced  with 
little  attention  to  the  means,  till  at  last  the  effect  seems  to  occur 
without  the  use  of  these  means  at  all.  When  the  mind  would 
accomplish  an  object,  as  utter  a  sound,  hold  a  book,  or  let  it  fall, 
walk,  run,  or  leap,  it  thinks  only  of  the  effect,  and  wills  .it,  and 
it  is  accomplished. 

In  learning  the  unfamiliar  sounds  or  combinations 

How  we  learn  .          , 

to  talk  aud  to  of  a  foreign  language,  we  try  one  experiment  after 
another,  till  at  last  we  succeed.  When  the  ear  is 
satisfied  that  the  result  is  reached,  we  repeat  the  muscular  effort 
required,  guided  by  the  muscular  sensations,  till  our  com- 
mand over  the  organs  is  complete,  and  we  can  produce  at  will 
the.  sounds  which  we  seek  for.  The  infant  pursues  the  same 
method  in  learning  to  talk.  It  is  awakened  from  its  purposeless 
lispings  by  the  desire  to  produce  a  sound,  as  to  pronounce  a  word, 
or  a  brief  sentence.  It  succeeds  imperfectly  at  first,  but  well 
enough  to  guide  its  efforts  in  the  direction  toward  complete 
success.  It  triumphs  at  last,  and  it  attentively  observes  the 
sensations  which  are  connected  with  the  word  which  it  has 
learned  to  speak.  Guided  by  these  sensations,  it  can  repeat  the 
word  or  sentence  a  second  time. 

The  deaf-mute  cannot  learn  to  speak,  not  because  he  is  mute 
by  reason  of  any  defect  in  the  organs  of  speech,  but  because  he 
is  deaf,  and  cannot  regulate  these  organs.  He  has  the  vocal  appa- 
ratus in  complete  perfection  and  he  can  make  all  the  varieties 
of  vocal  utterances  which  are  required  in  speech,  but  not  having 
the  ear  by  which  to  direct  his  efforts,  he  can  neither  form  his  own 
efforts  to  definite  results,  nor  can  he  retain  the  acquisitions  which 
he  has  made.  In  a  few  cas^s,  the  deaf  and  dumb  have  been 
taught  to  articulate  by  a  discipline  specially  directed  to  the 


§107.  THE   ACQUIRED   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  143 

management  of  the  vocal   apparatus;  but  the   articulation   is 
imperfect,  and  easily  lost. 

The  infant  learns  to  walk  as  it  learns  to  talk.  It  notices  the 
sensations  which  attend  those  adjustments  of  the  muscles  which 
are  necessary  to  quick  or  slow  progress,  to  rising  or  sitting,  to 
running  or  leaping.  In  all  these  effects  we  are  usually  guided 
by  the  eye.  But  sometimes  we  have  not  the  eye  to  guide  us. 
We  ascend  a  flight  of  stairs  to  which  we  are  accustomed,  by  a 
vague  remembrance  of  the  height  and  width  of  the  steps.  The 
blind  depend  on  the  direction  of  others,  both  in  their  first  essays 
and  in  many  of  the  subsequent  uses  which  they  make  of  their 
limbs. 

By  similar  processes,  facility  is  acquired  in  those 
teri§r.°fEx-x"  uses  of  the  limbs  which  are  required  in  feats  of  dex- 
ferc?ss.lonal  '  terity,  as  in  sleight  of  hand,  or  in  playing  on  a  musi- 
cal instrument.  It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that 
whatever  movements  nature  fails  to  provide  for,  she  gracefully 
accepts  as  a  second  or  an  acquired  endowment.  The  effort  to  con- 
strain the  organs  or  limbs  to  an  unnatural  position  or  adjustment, 
may  at  first  be  painful,  and  it  may  cost  constant  and  severe 
application.  But  if  it  is  persevered  in,  and  especially  if  the 
intervals  in  which  it  is  remitted  are  short,  these  new  adjustments 
of  the  muscles  are  secured,  and  they  even  shape  themselves  to 
new  forms.  While  the  mind  is  renewing  its  efforts  at  brief  inter- 
vals for  a  succcession  of  months  or  years,  the  substance  of  the 
body,  in  obedience  to  the  laws  of  life,  is  continually  changing ; 
and  as  it  changes  in  its  material,  it  is  also  changed  in  form,  under 
the  moulding  pressure  of  psychical  tension. 

In  infancy  and  early  childhood  the  merely  physical  capacity 
of  receiving  directions  and  impressions  from  within  is  incompara- 
bly more  ready  and  quick  than  in  later  years.  In  early  life, 
every  single  distinct  effort  in  the  use  of  any  bodily  organ  seems 
to  initiate  a  definite  physical  predisposition  toward  a  permanent 
physical  effect,  either  in  the  force  or  direction  of  the  nervous 
stimulus,  or  in  a  new  combination  of  muscles,  or  in  fixing  some 
form  or  attitude.  A  few  repetitions,  a  brief  perseverance,  and 
the  body  is  permanently  moulded  or  fixed  to  the  special  service 
of  the  soul,  in  some  new  aptitude  or  habit.  Hence  it  is  that  the 
bodily  habits  acquired  in  early  life  are  so  readily  contracted  and 


144  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  108. 

so  inyeterately  retained.  But  whether  the  law  acts  with  greater 
or  less  efficiency  at  an  early  or  a  later  period,  the  principle  is  the 
same. 

§  108.  What  are  called  the  errors  of  the  senses  lie 
the  senses  ex-,  wholly  within  the  sphere  of  the  acquired  perceptions. 
A  person  needs  only  to  fall  into  a  few  such  mistakes 
to  be  convinced  that  they  are  mistakes  of  judgment  only,  and  that, 
as  in  the  cases  when  he  judges  correctly,  the  process  is  a  processs 
of  judgment  or  induction.  When  a  man  sees,  as  he  says,  a  bent 
stick  in  the  water,  he  judges  that  it  is  bent  by  what  he  sees ;  or, 
in  other  words,  he  judges  by  what  he  sees,  that,  if  the  stick  is 
handled  or  otherwise  tested  by  the  sense  of  touch,  it  will  be 
found  to  be  crooked.  And  yet  he  seems  to  perceive  by  the  eye 
that  it  is  bent.  So,  when  he  looks  into  a  kaleidoscope,  and  sees 
scores  of  brilliant  objects  arranged  in  symmetrical  groups,  he 
perceives  them  all  by  the  eye,  and  can  count  their  number,  and 
does  not  doubt  that  he  can  grasp  them  all  by  the  hand.  It  is 
common  in  such  cases  for  a  person  to  say  that  his  senses  deceive 
him.  But  the  senses  are  not  treacherous :  they  cannot  deceive. 
It  is  the  man  who  is  deceived  in  the  judgments  which  he  pro- 
nounces on  the  evidence  which  the  senses  furnish.  He  is  simply 
hasty  and  premature  in  judging  by  the  eye.  He  rashly  connects, 
with  what  he  sees  by  the  eye,  something  which  he  believes  with 
his  mind.  The  bent  stick  is  perceived  when  out  of  the  water 
just  as  is  a  bent  stick  in  the  water;  in  either  case  a  judgment  is 
pronounced — in  the  one  case  a  judgment  which  is  right,  in  the 
other  a  judgment  which  is  wrong. 

The  muscular  sensations  of  the  fingers  may  also  be  disturbed. 
We  cross  the  fingers,  and  at  the  points  of  both  a  single  pea  is 
felt  as  two.  The  reason  is  that  the  convex  surfaces,  which  as 
they  are  usually  touched  are  interpreted  as  looking  inward  form- 
ing a  single  sphere,  seem  to  look  outward,  and  by  the  imagina- 
tion are  interpreted  as  requiring  two  to  complete  them. 

This  class  of  the  so-called  errors  and  deceptions  of  the  senses 
ought  to  be  sharply  distinguished  from  another,  which  is  caused 
by  the  physical  conditions  of  the  sensations  themselves.  Some  men, 
for  example,  are  color-blind — i.  e.,  they  see  every  object  in  one 
uniform,  dingy  hue,  instead  of  under  the  bright  and  diversified 
colors  which  are  granted  to  the  majority  of  men.  Some  men. 


i2uj?.°f  k"°w" 


§  109.  THE  ACQUIRED   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  145 

through  a  disease  of  the  stomach  or  liver,  see  every  object  tinged 
with  yellow.  It  occasionally  happens  that  a  man  is  afflicted  with 
double  vision  —  seeing  two  objects  where  other  men  see  only  one. 
Others  see  spectra,  or  visible  images  which  have  no  tangible 
reality,  and  no  reality  at  all  except  to  the  individual  who 
beholds  them.  Others  hear  sounds,  as  of  ringing  in  the  ears, 
when  there  is  no  sonorous  body,  and  no  vibration  of  the  atmos~ 
phere.  Cases  of  this  kind  are  never  deceptions  of  the  senses, 
for  the  objects  perceived  are  the  natural  and  legitimate  product 
of  the  physical  conditions  that  are  present;  these  conditions 
being  the  physical  excitants  or  stimuli  and  the  sensorium  excited, 
whether  to  normal  or  abnormal  activity. 

§  109.   The  acquired  perceptions  differ  from  the 
original  as  forms  of  knowledge.     Acts  of  original  per- 
ception  are   acts   of  direct   or  immediate   knowledge. 
In  such  acts  the  objects  are  present  to  the  intellect, 
and  the  intellect  knows  directly  that  they  are,  and  that  they 
exist  in  certain  relations.     Acts  of  acquired  perception  are  acts 
of  mediate  knowledge.     In  such   acts   it   is   by   the   medium    of 
another  act  of  original  perception,  that  the  object  is  said  to  be 
perceived.     Thus,  when  I  kuow  the  place  of  an  object,  the  size 
or  distance  of  an  object  seen,  I  use  a  direct  or  immediate  percep- 
tion as  the  medium  through  which  I  reach  \vhat  I  know  indirectly. 

Again:  an  act  of  acquired  perception  requires  for  its  fulfilment 
the  representative  power,  in  the  form  of  phantasy  or  m  emory.  When 
the  mind,  on  occasion  of  a  direct  perception,  supplies  that  which 
it  does  not  directly  feel,  or  see,  or  measure,  it  must  reproduce 
its  object  from  something  previously  experienced,  either  in  the 
form  of  a  perception  precisely  like  what  .is  reproduced,  or  else 
similar  or  analogous.  But  the  original  perception  apprehends  its 
object  directly. 

Again  :  if  the  act  of  acquired  perception  rests  upon  the  repre- 
senting power  or  agency,  it  must  involve  the  action  of  the  asso- 
ciative power.  At  the  experience  cf  one  odor,  we  t"hink  of  a 
lily;  at  the  experience  of  another,  of  a  tuberose.  At  the 
sight  of  a  distant  moving  object,  no  larger  than  a  mote,  we 
think  of  a  man  or  a  horse.  What  brings  the  form  of  a  rose  or 
a  tuberose,  the  picture  of  a  man  or  a  horse,  before  mv  mind's  eye 
on  occasion  of  these  direct  perceptions?  We  must  anticipate 
7 


146  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  109k 

our  knowledge   of  the  laws  which  govern  the    representative 
power,  in  order  to  answer — The  laws  of  association. 

Every  act  of  acquired  perception  is  an  act  of  in- 
duction.  The  mind  does  more  than  represent  some 
picture  or  remembrance  out  of  the  stores  of  its  past 
experience;  it  believes  there  is  a  real  object  corresponding  to  this 
picture.  In  so  doing,  it  performs  a  process  of  induction.  It 
judges,  by  the  signs  or  indications  which  the  original  perceptions 
furnish,  that  there  are  existing  objects  which  the  other  senses 
would  find  to  exist  should  they  make  the  trial.  The  process  by 
which  this  belief  is  attained  is  variously  named  inference,  induc- 
tion, judgment,  interpretation,  etc.  It  is  peculiar  in  this,  that  it 
knows  by  media  or  signs.  It  also  assumes  that  these  signs 
always  indicate  the  same  accompaniments,  and  that  the  laws  and 
operations  of  nature  are  uniform  in  respect  to  the  connections 
which  are  indicated. 

It  may  surprise  many  to  learn  that  the  processes  employed  in 
the  acquired  perceptions  are  processes  of  induction.  Induction 
is  usually  conceived  and  described  as  a  process  which  is  appro- 
priated to  philosophical  discovery,  which  requires  wide  generali- 
zation and  profound  reflection,  and  issues  only  in  comprehensive 
principles  and  laws.  A  little  reflection  will  satisfy  any  one, 
however,  that  the  act  of  mind  is  the  same  with  that  performed 
in  every  one  of  the  acquired  perceptions.  The  difference  between 
the  two  kinds  of  induction  is  not  in  the  process,  but  in  the 
materials  upon  which  the  mind  performs  them.  But  the  acts, 
the  fundamental  assumptions,  and  the  liabilities  to  error  in  both, 
are  essentially  the  same. 

But  it  cannot  be  possible,  it  will  be  urged,  that  the  perceptions 
which  the  infant  so  rapidly  acquires,  and  which  the  most  igno- 
rant and  unreflecting  so  skilfully  apply,  are  in  their  nature 
similar  to  those  profound  and  daring  acts  by  which  the  astrono- 
mer scales  the  heavens,  and  the  naturalist  penetrates  and  resolves 
the  mysteries  of  the  universe.  The  difficulties  and  objections 
which  are  expressed  in  this  language  can  be  most  effectually  set 
aside,  if  we  notice  the  differences  in  the  circumstances  and  con- 
ditions of  the  acts  performed  by  the  infant  and  the  philosopher. 

We  notice  1.  that  the  infant  employs  its  perceptions  upon  a 
very  limited  number  of  objects. 


§  109.  THE   ACQUIRED   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  147 

2.  The  few  objects  which  the  infant  mind  distinguishes  are 
constantly  recumng  to  view. 

3.  All  the  objects  and  parts  of  objects  with  which  the  infant 
has  to  do — in  other  words,  all  its  sense-perceptions — have  an 
immediate  relation  to  its  appetites  and  desires. 

4.  When  any  experiment  has  been  successfully  made  in  the 
way  of  connecting  the  known  and  the  untried,  the  gratification 
at  success  will  stimulate  to  repetition :  and  this  again  holds  the 
attention  to  every  element  and  step  in  the  process,  till  the  whole 
is  fixed  in  the  memory.     The  infant  repeats  all  its  lessons  as  fast 
as  it  learns  them,  because  it  rejoices  over  its  acquisitions. 

5.  The  associating  power  unites  what  observation  notices.     So 
few  are  the  combinations  which  it  has  made  as  yet,  and  so  closely 
were  they  connected  by  the  original  acts  which  first  bound  them 
together,  that  the  one  cannot  be  perceived  or  thought  of  without 
its  companion. 

6.  The  resemblances  which  the  infant  apprehends  are  few,  and 
discerned  with  little  effort.     It  might  better  be  said  that  similar 
objects  are  at  first  recognized  as  the  same,  rather  than  discerned 
as  similar.     Hence  the  inductions  of  the  infant  are  at  first  simple 
acts   of  spontaneous  memory,   rather   than  beliefs   founded  on 
similar  instances. 

In  induction  proper,  the  similarities  are  remote — not  obvious, 
not  directly  discerned,  but  indirectly  surmised ;  the  data  them- 
selves are  the  results  of  previous  research  and  reflection,  instead 
of  being  forced  upon  the  attention. 

7.  The  infant  cares  for  the  result,  and,  in  its  eagerness  to  reach 
it,  slights  or  disregards  the  means.     What  it  finds  to   be  true, 
occupies  its  attention,  and  not  the  evidence  or  data  by  which  it 
has  discovered  it. 

8.  The  freshness  and  energy  of  the  activity  of  the  human  soul 
in  the  earliest  periods  of  its  life  continually  surprise  and  astonish 
us.     The  activity  of  the  intellect,  the  freshness  of  interest,  the 
energy  of  will,  the  eagerness  of  the  desires,  the  variety  of  the 
experiments  upon  itself,  upon  nature,  and  man,  are  ceaseless  occa- 
sions of  interest  and  surprise  to  older  persons  whose  powers  are 
torpid  or  overwrought,  and  whose  curiosity  is  partially  sated. 

Whatever  objections  may  be  urged  against  the  possibility  that 
acquisitions  like  these  should  be  made  in  infancy  and  early  life, 


148  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  109. 

are  satisfactorily  met  by  the  unquestioned  fact,  that  the  infant  is 
constantly  making  experiments  and  falling  into  errors  in  this 
very  sphere  of  induction  and  acquired  knowledge.  It  makes 
awkward  attempts  to  grasp,  to  reach,  to  stand;  and  to  walk ;  it 
misjudges  in  respect  to  the  distance,  form,  size,  and  nature  of 
the  objects  beyond  its  reach ;  it  is  taught  by  experience,  and  it 
applies  the  lessons  which  experience  imparts,  whether  painful  or 
pleasant.  It  is  never  so  busy  as  in  the  earliest  years  of  its  life. 
All  this  time  it  is  chiefly  occupied  with  experiments  upon  the 
material  world  and  its  own  bodily  powers,  its  energy  being 
employed  in  the  very  directions,  and  being  busied  with  the  very 
objects,  with  which  the  acquired  perceptions  are  concerned. 

It  ought  also  to  be  remembered  that,  during  the  same  period, 
it  makes  the  surprising  acquisition  of  language ;  always  of  the 
mother-tongue,  and,  if  circumstances  favor,  of  one  or  two  lan- 
guages more.  To  acquire  a  new  language  so  as  to  speak  it  well, 
costs  an  adult  whose  powers  are  well  disciplined  many  months, 
if  not  years  of  labor.  With  how  much  greater  ease,  rapidity, 
and  perfection,  is  the  same  task  achieved  by  the  infant !  Surely 
it  is  not  surprising  that  at  an  age  as'  early,  or  even  earlier,  it 
should  master  the  acquired  perceptions. 

It  might  be  urged  in  objection  still  further,  that 

Objections  from  J 

the  cases  of  ani-  there  is  no  evidence  that  animals   have  what  are 

mals. 

properly  acquired  perceptions.  On  the  contrary, 
observation  shows  decisively  that  they  perceive  directly  the  dis- 
tance, size,  and  properties  of  the  objects  with  which  they  are 
concerned.  The  chicken,  with  the  young  of  certain  birds,  strikes 
its  beak  with  precision  and  success  at  the  food  brought  within  its 
reach,  even  before  it  is  released  from  the  shell.  The  young  of 
the  partridge  and  the  grouse  run  swiftly  through  the  stubble, 
avoiding  projecting  objects  as  if  with  practiced  skill.  The  young 
of  quadrupeds  run  and  leap  with  little  previous  discipline  or  train- 
ing. In  view  of  these  facts,  it  is  confidently  urged  that,  if 
these  animals  are  taught  by  instinct  to  perceive  correctly,  it  is 
not  to  be  supposed  that  man  would  be  left  to  the  slow  and 
uncertain  processes  of  feeling  his  way  along  to  certain  beliefs. 
Surely  nature  would  do  as  much  for  its  noblest  work,  as  for  tho 
inferior  species. 

To  this  objection  is  to  be  opposed  the  indisputable  fact  that 


§  109.  THE   ACQUIRED   SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.  149 

the  human  species  is  slowly  disciplined  to  feel  its  way  on  to 
matured  and  trustworthy  acquisitions.  The  reason  why,  is  ob- 
vious. The  animal  has  not  the  capacity  to  judge  by  signs,  to 
that  extent  and  with  that  discrimination  which  would  qualify  it  to 
build  up  the  power  of  perception.  This  deficiency  is  supplemented 
by  instinct,  about  which  we  know  but  little,  but  enough  to  be  cer- 
tain that  it  effects  by  blind  and  unintelligent  impulse  what  reason 
discerns  and  performs  with  discriminating  judgment. 

Some  facts  are  observed  in  infants  which  are  supposed  to  be 
inconsistent  with  these  conclusions,  and  to  prove  decisively  that 
the  infant,  as  well  as  the  animal,  has  a  so-called  instinctive  per- 
ception of  distance.  Thus,  for  example,  Adam  Smith  reasons: 
"  A  child  that  is  scarcely  a  month  old,  stretches  out  its  hands  to 
feel  any  little  plaything  that  is  presented  toward  it."  It  is  more 
than  possible  that  in  infancy  the  eye  cannot  be  excited  by  a 
visible  object,  especially  if  the  object  gives  pleasure,  without  a 
consentient  movement  of  the  hands,  and  of  both  hands  and  eyes, 
in  the  same  direction.  That  some  provision  should  be  made  for 
guch  a  conspiring  movement  or  impulse  to  motion  of  two 
members  of  the  body  that  perform  many  functions  in  common, 
may  be  received  as  probable,  and  believed  to  be  true.  But  this 
would  not  prove  that  the  eye,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term, 
discerns  distance.  All  the  movements  with  both  hand  and  eye 
show  that  this  is  judged  or  inferred  by  indications  or  signs. 

Important    reasons  suggest    themselves,   however, 

.  Reasons  why 

why  the  animal  is  taught  and  impelled  by  instinct  to   the  perceptions 

,     "  .  of  animals  and 

do  at  once,  and  with  little  exposure  to  failure,  what  of  man  should 
man  can  only  attain  by  slow  and  painful  acquisition, 
and  at  the  risk  of  many  failures  and  sufferings.  The  discipline 
to  which  man  is  subjected  has  respect  to  his  moral  culture  as 
well  as  to  his  intellectual  discipline.  He  needs  to  learn  patience, 
caution,  foresight,  and  circumspection,  as  well  as  the  highei 
virtues.  All  oi  these  are  furthered  by  the  disciplinary  processes 
through  which  he  gains  the  acquired  perceptions.  It  is  by  the 
adaptation  of  this  discipline  to  high  moral  uses,  that  we  explain 
the  law  of  nature  by  which  man  is  born  the  most  ignorant  and 
helpless  of  all  the  animals,  and  forced,  as  it  were,  to  make  his 
acquisitions  by  his  own  sagacity,  as  fast  as  he  is  impelled  by  his 
awakened  appetites,  desires,  and  affections. 


150  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §110. 

We  conclude,  then,  that  the  processes  of  the  acquired  percep- 
tions are  processes  of  induction,  and  that  they  involve  the  powers 
of  representation,  and  judgment  by  indications.  In  other  words, 
in  the  very  act  of  perception,  usually  considered  as  the  lowest 
and  the  most  elementary  of  all  the  acts  of  the  intellect,  there  is 
required  the  presence  of  the  higher  powers  with  the  intuitions 
and  relations  which  they  involve.  This  is  a  striking  instance 
of  the  principle  already  enounced,  that  no  faculty  of  the  intellect 
can  act  apart  from  the  rest.  For  we  have  found  that,  in  the 
very  lowest  of  all,  the  rudimentary  action  of  the  very  highest 
must  be  present,  in  order  that  its  perceptions  may  be  human 
and  rational. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

DEVELOPMENT   AND   GROWTH   OF    SENSE-PERCEPTION. 

§  110.  We  propose  next  to  trace  the  growth  and 
'/dSi-  development  of  the  sense-perceptions  in  earliest  in- 
. **"*  fancy.  We  take  our  guidance  from  what  we  have 
observed  of  those  processes  which  we  are  certain  that 
we  acquire,  and,  going  back  to  that  period  of  which  memory 
brings  no  report,  we  ask,  From  what  beginnings,  in  what  order, 
and  by  what  steps  does  the  infant  mind  develop  an(J  mature  the 
power  of  sense-perception  of  which  it  finds  itself  in  possession 
when  it  awakes  to  distinct  and  remembered  consciousness? 

The  question  is  full  of  interest.  It  seems  like  a  proposal  to 
revive  the  experience  of  our  earliest  years,  and  restore,  as  it  were, 
the  forgotten  past  of  our  lives.  There  is  a  mystery  about  those 
months  and*  years  which  we  would  fain  unravel,  while  the  diffi- 
culty and  apparent  insuperableness  of  the  problem  incite  and 
challenge  us  to  the  effort. 

The  difficulty  which  attends  the  effort  arises  from  the  fact  that 
it  is  impossible,  by  memory,  to  bring  back  a  single  fragment 
of  our  infant  life.  We  cannot  penetrate  the  darkness  and 
obscurity  which  overhang  the  whole  of  this  period  of  our  existence, 


§  110.    DEVELOPMENT  AND  GROWTH  OP  SENSE-PERCEPTION.     151 

We  can  not  recall  to  the  memory  any  single  perception  in 
which  all  visible  objects  were  depicted  on  an  extended  plane, 
without  distance  or  depth.  Nor  can  we  by  imagination  feign 
such  an  experience.  The  effort  to  do  either  must  be  fruitless. 
The  new  elements  which  we  have  incorporated  into  our  constant 
habitudes  of  perception  and  knowledge  we  can  never  throw  off. 
We  can  not  lay  off  the  new  growth  which  has  overgrown  the 
original  germ.  But  the  problem,  though  difficult,  is  not  insolva- 
ble.  To  the  judgment  only  is  it  explicable,  but  not  to  the  imagi- 
nation. We  can  demonstrate  what  our  infant  life  must  have  been, 
but  we  cannot  imagine  how  this  infant  life  must  have  seemed. 

To  attempt  to  retrace  and  thus  to  reconstruct  the  processes 
of  the  earliest  perceptions  of  childhood,  is  not  irrational.  We 
have  at  our  command  the  materials  with  which  to  prosecute  our 
analysis  and  to  construct  our  synthesis.  These  are  the  known 
facts  of  experience  and  observation  within  our  conscious  experi- 
ence, the  facts  observed  of  infants  and  very  young  children,  and 
the  probable  conclusions  which  analogy  warrants  us  in  deriving 
from  both. 

Who  can  tell  what  a  baby  thinks  ? 
Who  can  follow  the  gossamer  links 

By  which  the  manikin  feels  his  way 
Out  from  the  shore  of  the  great  unknown, 
Blind,  and  wailing,  and  alone, 

Into  the  light  of  day  ? 
***** 

What  does  he  think  of  his  mother's  eyes  ? 

What  does  he  think  of  his  mother's  hair? 
What,  of  the  cradle-roof,  that  flies 

Forward  and  backward  through  the  air?  etc. 
J.  Of.  HOLLAND. — Bitter- Sweet. 

All  that  we  observe  of  the  actions  of  infants  and  young 
children  is  entirely  consistent  with  the  theory,  that  they  develop 
the  power  of  perception  by  many  experiments  and  many  mis- 
takes. 

The  known  methods  and  laws  of  nature  in  the  education  of 
men  and  of  animals  give  the  strongest  confirmation  to  these  con- 
clusions. We  rely  with  confidence  upon  the  view  that,  so  far  as 
it  is  possible  to  account  for  the  acquired  perceptions  by  the 


152  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT. 

theory  of  intelligent  activity  rather  than  by  that  of  blind  instinct, 
so  far  we  are  bound  to  go.  Where  intelligent  activity  cannot  be 
presumed  or  proved,  there  instinct  and  intuition  must  be 
assumed. 

Synthesis  or  combination,  however,  cannot  account  for  every 
process  or  solve  every  problem.  There  must  be  original  elements 
with  which  to  begin,  or  else  there  would  be  nothing  with  which 
to  combine,  or  which  could  be  added  when  it  was  sought  for. 
There  must  be  capacities  or  powers  of  original  knowledge, 
beyond  or  behind  which  we  cannot  go  in  our  analysis ;  which 
capacities,  indeed,  give  the  elements  which  we  evolve  by 
such  analysis. 

§  111.  These  things  being  premised,  we  observe: 
of  the  Intel-  The  first  condition  in  which  the  soul  exists  before  the 

lect     before  .  ...  , 

eense-percep-    beginnings  of  conscious  activity,  is  nearly  allied  to  the 

tion  begins.  &  J-X-UJT,J  £          jj 

state  of  sleep  undisturbed  by  dreams,  or  of  a  dead 
fainting,  in  which  the  most  indistinct  and  feeblest  sensations 
possible  are  experienced  without  distinct  perception.  The  unde- 
veloped condition  of  man  is  not  dreamlike  in  the  sense  of  being 
confused,  or  bewildered ;  it  is  rather  such  a  vague  and  low  condi- 
tion of  sense-perception  as  would  attend  the  activity  of  those 
muscular  and  vital  sensations  which  belong  to  the  processes  of 
the  animal  life.  These  sensations,  when  closely  attended  to  in 
later  knowledge,  are  at  best  but  vague  and  indefinite ;  and  when 
they  fill  up  the  whole  world  of  our  conscious  life,  they  must 
be  obscure  indeed. 

From  this  condition  the  soul  is  aroused  when  it 
amiliefo"op-gs  begins  to  attend  either  to  a  sensational  excitement,  or 
tion*  °f  attea~  to  the  responsive  perceptional  act.  The  soul  scarcely 

can  be  said  to  have  sensations  even,  till  it  is  con- 
scious of  some  sharp  or  positive  experience  of  pain  or  pleasure. 
Much  less  can  it  be  said  to  perceive,  till  its  attention  is  aroused, 
repeated,  and  fixed  upon  some  single  sensible  percept. 

We  are  not  to  suppose  that  the  attention,  in  either  of  these 
directions,  is  developed  at  a  single  bound,  or  that  its  energy  is 
attained  by  one  spasm  of  effort;  nor  that  the  soul  maintains 
itself  always  in  the  attent  condition  which  at  first  it  attains  only 
now  and  then.  All  analogies  from  the  states  of  our  mature  ex- 
perience would  lead  us  to  believe  that  the  soul  now  rises  for  a 


§  112.    DEVELOPMENT  AND  GROWTH  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION.     153 

moment  into  fixed  attention,  and  then  sinks  again  into  blank 
inanity. 

Nor,  again,  are  we  to  believe  that  the  attention  can  only  be 
aroused  or  occupied  by  a  single  sense  at  once,  but  rather  that 
two  or  more  of  the  senses  may  be  exercised  at  the  same  time  upon 
their  appropriate  objects,  and  thus  the  development  of  one  of  the 
senses  may  aid  that  of  the  others.  This  view  is  altogether  con- 
sistent with  nature  and  experience,  and  with  the  observations 
which  we  are  able  to  make  of  the  successive  efforts  which  the 
infant  makes  to  correct  his  mistakes  and  to  perfect  the  training 
of  his  powers.  As  it  is  true  with  the  adult,  so  is  it  with  the 
infant;  the  several  capacities  are  developed  together  and  aid  one 
another. 

§  112.  The  sense-perceptions  which  we  should  expect 
would  be  developed  first  are  the  muscular  and  vital.  If, 
however,  we  perceive  only  so  far  as  we  attend,  we 
ought  not  to  call  these  sense-perceptions  till  they  are 
connected  with  other  perceptions  which  are  more  positive  and 
objective,  as  the  perceptions  of  sight  and  touch. 

We  should  also  suppose  that  the  three  senses  of  hearing,  taste, 
and  smell,  would  spring  into  activity  next  in  order.  Observa- 
tion does  not,  however,  confirm  these  anticipations.  The  sense 
of  hearing  is  used,  in  some  feeble  degree,  a  few  days  after  birth, 
scarcely  in  such  a  manner  or  degree  as  to  be  called  attentive  or 
discriminating.  The  sense  of  taste  is  still  later.  At  first,  the 
infant  swallows  medicine  as  readily  as  milk.  It  is  not  till  some 
four  weeks  have  elapsed  that  it  distinguishes  the  one  from  the 
other.  The  sense  of  smell  is  exercised  still  later.  Others  say 
taste  and  smell  are  active  from  the  first.  Hearing,  though  feebly 
developed  at  first,  remains  the  longest,  as  death  comes  on. 

It  is  with  the  eye  and  the  hand  that  the  soul  begins  fixedly  to 
attend,  and  of  course,  effectively  to  perceive.  But  with  which 
does  it  first  begin — with  the  eye,  or  with  the  hand?  It  is  impos- 
sible to  answer.  Perhaps  it  were  safer  and  more  exact  to  say 
that  it  begins  with  neither  alone,  but  with  both,  each  aiding  the 
other. 

In  our  analysis  we  begin  with  the  hand.  Whatever  may  be 
true  of  the  eye,  we  are  certain  that  intelligent  perception  by 
touch  must  be  acquired  very  early  for  those  who  can  see. 

7* 


154  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  113. 

§  113.  We  begin,  then,  with  touch.  Our  problem 
ment^Touch"  is,  to  show  by  what  steps  of  touch  we  acquire  the 
'perception  of  extension  and  of  outness  or  externality 
• — by  which  we  mean  separableness  from  the  body — or  the  not- 
body.  We  assume  that  by  original  perception  the  non-ego  proper 
is  distinguished  from  the  sentient  ego,  or  the  ego  which  animates 
the  sensorium.  We  do  not  ask  at  what  time  this  distinction  is 
consciously  developed;  we  only  contend  that  it  can  not  be  acquired. 
Our  present  inquiry  is  by  what  process  the  knowledge  of  the  non- 
ego  as  the  not-body,  is  attained. 

The  first  step  is  for  the  soul  to  know  familiarly  its  own  body 
as  bounded  by  a  limiting  surface.  This  knowledge  it  acquires  by 
contrasting  the  muscular  and  tactual  perceptions.  The  muscular 
and  tactual  perceptions  we  suppose  to  be  familiarly  known.  By 
means  of  the  distinguished  muscular  sensations  we  perceive  the 
interior  of  the  body  which  the  spirit  inhabits  and  controls.  Upon 
contact  of  the  sensorium  with  what  are  afterwards  discovered 
to  be  material  objects,  we  have  only  certain  affections  upon  its 
own  surface.  When  an  infant  lays  its  hand  on  anything  flat 
and  smooth,  it  perceives  a  portion  of  its  own  body  in  a  given  state 
of  activity.  If  this  surface  is  triangular,  a  corresponding  portion 
of  the  sensorium  is  similarly  excited,  and  so  on.  As  soon  as  the 
two  classes  of  sense-perceptions  are  familiar  by  attention,  the 
muscular  sensations  give  us  the  knowledge  of  the  interior  space 
that  the  sensorium  occupies,  and  the  tactual  sensations  give  the 
knowledge  of  its  bounding  or  limiting  enclosure.  The  infant 
is  constantly  made  aware  of  this  limit,  by  contact  with  the  sur- 
rounding objects  that  excite  it  to  sentient  activity.  In  the  warm 
surroundings  of  a  bath,  bed,  or  heated  apartment,  the  surface 
of  the  body  is  defined  by  a  gentle  glow.  If  the  temperature  is 
cool,  it  is  revealed  by  the  rough  and  comfortless  chill,  that  creeps 
over  and  pinches  the  sensitive  wrapping. 

The  second  step  is  to  distinguish  the  two  descriptions  of  tactual 
sense-perceptions  which  are  experienced  as  the  hand  is  applied 
to  any  part  of  the  body  as  the  arm,  or  to  the  non-sentient  table. 
In  the  one  case  the  surface  that  is  touched,  also  gives  the  sense- 
perceptions  of  being  touched;  in  the  other  it  gives  or  so  to  speak 
experiences  none.  The  absence  of  capacities  for  sensation  distin- 
guishes a  certain  class  of  objects  as  unlike  all  those  which  Lave 


§113.    DEVELOPMENT  AND  GROWTH  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION.      155 

them.  This  is  the  distinguishing  mark  of  extra-corporeal  objects. 
It  is  not,  however,  enough  that  objects  are  distinguished  as  extra- 
corporeal.  They  must  be  also  known  as  separated  in  space — i.  e., 
they  must  be  known  as  extended,  and  thereby  involving  a  space 
which  is  beyond  or  without  the  body.  This  suggests  the  next 
acquisition. 

Third,  Objects  corporeal  and  extra-corporeal  can  be  grasped 
by  the  hand,  and  in  this  way  can  be  known  as  occupying  space. 
When  a  blind  man  grasps  his  own  arm  or  wrist,  he  knows  cer- 
tain muscular  sensations  as  extended  through  and  posited  in  the 
space  that  lies  within  the  surfaces  that  he  touches.  If  his  wrist 
is  withdrawn  from  the  enclosing  grasp,  and  an  extra-corporeal 
object  is  inserted  in  its  place,  the  adjustments  of  the  grasping 
hand  are  the  same  as  before,  and  the  dim  knowledge  of  the  space 
which  these  adjustments  involve  is  also  the  same.  All  is  the 
same,  except  the  sensations  located  within  the  wrist.  The  wrist 
is  known  by  direct  perception  as  space-filling.  The  enclosing 
hand  is  a  measure  of  the  space  enclosed.  The  same  enclosing  or 
grasping  hand  measures  the  surface  of  another  body,  whether  it 
is  applied  to  a  sentient  or  a  non-sentient  object.  The  last  is  mea- 
sured by  the  first,  by  means  of  the  extension  of  the  enclosing  hand. 
It  occupies,  however,  precisely  the  space  which  the  other  filled. 
It  is  known,  therefore,  as  space- filling,  and  as  filling  other  space 
than  that  occupied  by  any  part  of  the  body. 

In  this  way  it  is  possible  for  the  mind,  by  touch  alone  to 
reach  the  extra-corporeal  world,  and  to  know  that  all  its  objects, 
like  the  body  with  which  it  is  directly  connected,  occupy  space. 

These  processes  are  all  acquired,  and  that  which  is  acquired  in 
them  all  is  the  facility  of  using  one  percept  as  the  sign  of 
another,  or  of  some  relation  which  is  indicated  by  the  percept  as 
its  invariable  attendant — e.  </.,  outness,  extension,  direction,  dis- 
tance, size,  and  the  like. 

The  theory  of  sense-perception,  taught  in  this  volume,  coin- 
cides with  the  theories  of  John  MUller  and  Sir  William  Hamilton,    thSr^rf^he 
so  far  as  they  agree,  yiz.,  that  we  have  a  direct  or  intuitive  per-    perception     of 
ception  of  the  extended  organism,  and  an  -indirect  or  acquired    ganic, 
perception  of  extra-organio  matter.     Miiller  explains  the  last  pro- 
cess,  substantially  as  we  have  done,  though  with  less  detail.     Hamilton  explains 
it  thus  :  "  The  existence  of  an  extra-organic  world  is  apprehended  *  *  *  in  tho 
tonsciousness  that  our  locomotive  energy  is  resisted,  and  not  resisted  by  aught 


156  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  114. 

in  our  organism  itself.  For  in  the  consciousness  of  being  thus  resisted  is  in- 
volved as  a  correlative,  the  consciousness  of  a  resisting  something."  (Appendix 
to  Works  of  Reid,  Note  D«,  28;  cf.  20,  23,  24,  25,  20;  cf.  864,  Note  D.) 

This  explanation  of  the  process  supposes  the  application  of  the  relation  oi 
causation.  For  it  represents  the  locomotive  energy  as  a  causative  energy  which, 
unresisted,  would  produce  certain  effects,  which  effects  are  overborne  or  set  asido 
by  an  agent  which  is  known  to  be  neither  the  ego  nor  the  organism  with  which 
the  ego  is  connected.  From  the  presence  of  this  new  and  strange  effect,  the  ex- 
istence of  an  extra-organic  agent  is  inferred.  The  theory  is  in  principle  the  same 
with  that  of  Dr.  Thomas  Brown  which  we  have  already  noticed,  with  this  dif- 
ference, that  Brown  supposes  the  cause  and  its  activities  to  be  both  spiritual  and 
non-extended,  while  Hamilton  supposes  the  locomotive  energy  to  be  known 
directly  as  extended.  The  distinction  of  body  and  not-body  is  better  explained 
by  the  presence  and  absence  of  certain  tactual  and  muscular  sense-perceptions. 
When  the  reflective  consciousness  has  been  developed  and  the  relation  of  causa- 
tion is  familiarly  handled  by  the  mind,  this  relation  would  confirm  and  make  de- 
finite the  belief  in  extra-organic  beings  and  agents. 

A  more  serious  difficulty  is  involved  in  Hamilton's  theory — the  same,  indeed, 
which  in  another  way  is  fatal  to  that  of  Brown's,  viz.,  it  seems  not  to  explain  how 
with  the  necessity  of  finding  for  this  effect  an  extra-organic  cause,  this  te  correla- 
tive "  "resisting  something  "  must  also  be  proved  to  be  extended.  The  agent, 
the  ego,  as  a  percipient  and  actor  is  not  extended ;  then  why  may  not  the  extra- 
organic  agent  and  non-ego  be  non-extended,  or  why  must  it  be  extended  ?  How 
is  it  shown  to  be  correlative  so  far  as  to  be  extended,  except  it  is  taken  to  be  the 
analogon  of  the  extended  organism,  i.  c.,  like  it  in  being  spatial  in  many  per- 
cepts, etc.,  etc.,  but  unlike  it  in  respect  to  other  sense-percepts,  as  we  have  ex- 
plained. 

§  114.  We  consider  next  the  development  of  the 
ofrMonfm<  '*  eye.  Vision  seems  to  begin  at  that  early  period 
when  the  bright  and  steady  light  attracts  and  holds 
the  infant's  eye,  or  when  it  carries  the  eye  with  itself  wherever 
it  leads.  Certain  objects  that  glisten  with  reflected  rays,  or  that 
are  brilliant  with  intense  color,  are  soon  separated  from  the 
background  of  undistinguished  things  against  which  they  are 
projected,  or  athwart  which  they  are  moved.  It  is  not  easy  to 
decide  how  much  of  intellectual  perception  attends  this  early 
moving  and  fixing  of  the  eyes,  and  how  much  is  an  unconscious 
and  reflex  response  of  the  nervous  organism  to  the  stimulating 
light.  The  eye  is  so  constructed  that  only  a  single  portion  of 
the  retina  can  give  a  p3rfect  image  of  an  object  that  comes 
within  the  field  of  view ;  so  that  when  a  bright  object  comes 
before  the  eye  at  all,  it  will  hold  or  draw  the  eye  to  or  after  it, 
by  the  reflex  action  of  the  nerves  which  its  brightness  excites. 
\Y"henever  the  mind  perceives  such  an  object  as  a  distinct  and 


§  114.    DEVELOPMENT  AND  GROWTH  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTIONS.    157 

definite  percept,  then  vision  begins.  Such  a  percept,  as  has 
already  been  explained,  is  known  as  a  non-ego,  and  is  known  to 
be  extended  in  two  dimensions. 

We  have  already  given  the  reasons  why,  in  the  beginnings 
of  vision,  the  percept  should  not  be  located  in  the  eye  (§  101). 
It  remains  for  us  to  show  why  it  should  be  projected  in  space. 
With  this  projection  of  visible  objects  afront  of  the  eye,  begins 
the  development,  or  education  of  the  sense  of  vision,  if  the  act  of 
location  is  acquired,  and  not  intuitive.  It  is  not  easy  to  explain  the 
steps  of  the  process,  or  the  grounds  why  the  percepts  are  carried 
forward  into  space,  even  if  they  are  not  located  in  the  eye.  Some 
contend  that  no  explanation  can  be  given,  because  none  is  re- 
quired ;  that  there  is  no  problem,  because  there  is  no  process,  it 
being,  in  their  view,  by  an  ordinance  of  nature  that  the  object 
seen  should  first  be  seen  at  the  eye's  focal  distance  forward,  and 
thus  here  is  fixed  the  original  starting-point  from  which  all  the 
acquired  judgments  of  distance  proceed.  They  insist  that  all 
objects,  as  viewed  by  the  act  of  original  vision,  are  seen  in  a 
hollow  sphere — forward,  above,  below,  on  this  side  and  that — • 
whose  radius  is  this  focal  distance.  "Such  must  of  necessity  hold 
that  the  act  of  projection  is  original,  and  not  in  any  sense  ac- 
quired. 

Those  who  hold  that  it  is  acquired,  give  various  explanations 
of  the  process ;  in  all  of  which  they  must  call  in  the  aid  of  the 
hand.  The  most  plausible  is  the  following:  The  eye,  though, 
like  the  hand,  it  is  moved  by  muscles  which  are  directed  by  the 
aid  of  the  appropriate  sensations,  does  not,  when  in  its  normal  or 
healthy  state,  give  any  tactual  sensations  by  the  felt  contact 
of  its  surface  with  the  objects  which  affect  it,  nor  do  the  muscular 
sensations  themselves  attract  the  attention.  We  may  assume 
that,  in  the  way  explained,  space  and  spatial  objects  external  to  the 
body  have  become  familiar  through  the  sense  of  touch  and  the  use 
of  the  hand.  At  the  surface  of  the  eye  such  tactual  experi- 
ences are  wanting,  and  of  course  no  outer  limits  can  be  defined. 
So  soon  as  the  lids  are  raised  and  the  experiences  of  color  are 
made,  the  eye  gropes  after  these  strange  objects,  but  cannot 
touch  them.  It  reaches  after  them,  as  it  were,  but  they  are 
beyond  its  reach.  But  still  they  exist  If  they  draw  near, 


158  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §114 

while  the  eye  regards  them,  they  fill  more  of  its  field  of  view; 
jf  they  withdraw,  they  occupy  a  less  extensive  plane.  Mean- 
while, as  they  draw  near  or  remove,  the  eye  is  adjusted  to  perfect 
vision,  and  its  adjustments  and  motions  are  known  by  changing 
sensations;  but  still  the  objects  cannot  be  touched,  nor  can  they 
be  reached.  By  all  these  criteria,  visible  percepts  are  strikingly 
contrasted  with  those  which  are  tangible — they  exist,  but  they 
cannot  be  touched  by  the  eye,  nor  can  the  eye  reach  them.  They 
are  in  space  somewhere  without  the  body.  This  somewhere  is 
definitely  fixed  as  soon  as  the  seen  object  is  also  touched.  The 
where  of  the  percept  after  which  the  eye  inquires,  is  answered  as 
soon  as  the  hand  touches  the  object  seen.  The  limited  distance 
which  is  measured  by  the  sensations  proper  to  the  extended  hand, 
becomes  fixed  and  clear,  and  the  object  held  by  the  hand  and 
gazed  at  by  the  eye  is  distinctly  projected  in  space.  Hence- 
forward the  eye  and  the  hand  go  together  beyond  the  limited 
range  which  is  at  first  allotted  to  them,  into  the  unexplored 
infinitude  that  awaits  their  labors. 

Then  comes  the  power  to  set  up  a  field  of  vision.  This  sup- 
poses some  knowledge  of  place,  of  relative  distance  and  size,  in 
gaining  which  the  eye  is  aided  greatly  by  the  hand.  First,  the 
mind  must  construct  certain  definite  objects  of  vision  out  of  the 
bewildering  multitude  of  colors  and  outlines  which  present  them- 
selves to  the  unpracticed  eye.  Next,  it  must  select  a  few  of  these 
objects  for  its  observation  at  a  single  look.  These  it  must  place  in 
a  plane  more  or  less  distant,  leaving  out  of  distinct  vision  objects 
near  and  remote,  estimating  distance  and  judging  size  in  the  ways 
already  explained.  These  acts^  and  judgments  of  the  quick  and 
sensitive  eye,  aided  by  the  slower  and  cooler  hand,  must  be 
repeated  again  and  again,  till  any  required  field  of  vision  can  be 
selected  and  constructed  with  ease  and  precision,  so  that  we 
seem  to  see  space,  distance,  and  dimensions  by  the  simple  glance 
of  the  eye.  These  space  relations,  when  once  learned,  are  so  few, 
so  simple,  so  easily  indicated,  and  so  permanently  established,  that 
they  seem  never  to  have  been  learned  at  all.  They  become  en- 
twined in  all  our  associations ;  they  leap  at  once  to  the  imagina- 
tion ;  they  preoccupy  it  so  completely  as  to  shut  out  the  possi- 
bility of  the  opposite ;  their  suggestions  are  accepted  by  the  in< 
tellect  with  a  rapidity  that  often  leads  to  illusion  and  error. 


§  115.   DEVELOPMENT  AND  GROWTH  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION.     159 

Hence  is  it  that  all  the  so-called  subjective  sensations  are  at  once 
projected  into  space.  Hence,  when  the  veins  of  the  retina  them- 
selves become  the  objects  of  vision,  they  are  seen  afront  of  the 
eye,  a  dark  arborescence  projected  on  an  illuminated  background. 
Hence,  when  we  look  into  a  mirror,  either  natural  or  artificial, 
we  see  all  its  reflected  objects  in  the  depths  of  space.  Hence  the 
spectra  of  the  imagination,  the  visions  which  haunt  the  phantasy 
of  the  diseased  and  insane,  are  all  distributed  in  space. 
§  115.  We  are  next  to  show  how  the  infant  learns 

.  .  Combination 

to  combine  the  perceptions  of  touch  with  those  01  of  touch  and 
vision.  We  may  do  this  by  considering  how  the  infant 
learns  to  connect  the  hands  as  seen  with  the  hands  as  directly 
felt.  Before  this  is  possible,  the  hands  as  seen  must  become 
familiar  as  definite  and  separated  objects,  with  forms  that  are 
easily  recognized.  The  muscular  sensations  must  also  have 
become  definite  and  distinct  to  the  attentive  intellect. 

This  knowledge  being  given,  the  mind  must  learn  to  connect 
the  hands  as  seen,  with  the  hands  as  moved  and  touched.  To 
unite  these  two  percepts  is  one  of  the  first  and  most  important 
of  the  acquired  perceptions  which  the  infant  masters.  How  this 
can  be  effected,  seems  not  difficult  to  explain.  It  should  be  con- 
sidered, for  the  reason  already  given,  that  these  two  classes 
of  objects  are  the  only  objects  with  which  the  infant  is  conver- 
sant. These  occupy  its  chief  attention.  They  constitute  and  com- 
plete its  universe. 

Let  one  hand  lie  upon  another,  or  let  the  hand  rest  upon  a 
material  object  that  does  not  belong  to  its  body.  The  eye  watches 
the  process,  and  as  the  hand  holds  the  surface  with  its  sentient 
touch,  so  the  eye  holds  it  with  its  gaze ;  it  observes  that  what 
was  still  is  now  in  motion ;  that  what  was  seen  is  now  covered, 
and  by  the  interposing  hand.  Or,  if  the  process  be  described  in 
terms  taken  from  the  language  of  vision  only,  one  patch  of  color 
or  shade  or  light  is  obscured  by  another  which  moves  before 
it  and  hides  it  from  the  view.  Or,  one  is  moved  behind  another, 
and  is  hidden  from  sight.  In  this  way  the  two  percepts  coincide 
in  place,  and  one  is  made  the  sign  of  the  other ;  when  one  is  seen, 
it  is  expected  that  the  other  will  be  felt ;  when  one  is  felt,  the 
mind  expects  that  the  other  will  be  seen.  As  the  mind  proceeds 
and  masters  the  other  relations  of  form,  place,  size,  and  dis- 


160  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  115. 

tance,  etc.,  the  import  of  either  percept  as  a  sign  of  the  other 
becomes  to  the  same  extent  enlarged.  It  is  a  sign  not  only  of 
the  other  as  a  percept  simply,  but  of  all  the  relations  which  it 
signifies. 

These  acquisitions  are  in  fact  achieved  by  every  person  born 
blind,  to  whom  sight  is  given  in  later  years.  In  infancy,  the  eye 
performs  a  service  similar  to  that  which  it  renders  to  the  blind 
who  learn  to  see  in  mature  life ;  with  this  difference,  that  the 
eye  does  not  wait  to  furnish  its  aid  till  the  hand  has  done  all  that 
can  possibly  be  accomplished  without  it.  When  the  eye  and  the 
hand  are  developed  together,  by  their  mutual  aid  they  greatly 
shorten  the  processes  of  acquisition,  and  of  making  the  results 
more  sure.  What  each  can  do  apart,  we  have  already  con- 
sidered. It  is  fair  to  infer  that  in  the  processes  by  which  infancy 
makes  its  acquisitions,  whatever  each  can  do  best  it  will  perform 
for  the  other.  If  the  touch  gives  the  first  distinct  knowledge  of 
the  third  dimension  of  space,  it  places  this  knowledge  at  the  ser- 
vice of  the  eye.  The  eye,  if  it  can  not  directly  discern  distance, 
can  yet  observe  and  interpret  the  signs  of  distance.  The  hand 
can  determine  the  relative  distances  of  objects  only  within  its 
reach ;  or  the  foot  must  measure  off  distance  by  counting  the  steps, 
carrying  the  body  as  it  goes.  But  the  eye  can,  by  a  glance,  reach 
for  rods  and  furlongs  and  miles,  and  measure  with  sufficient  ac- 
curacy for  the  common  occasions  of  life. 

That  the  eye  and  the  hand  must  conspire  in  in- 
uPonSe7nafanS  fancy,  is  not  only  fairly  to  be  inferred,  but  it  is  evi- 
dent from  observation  of  the  experiments  which  the 
infant  is  continually  making  with  both.  The  infant  learns  to 
touch ;  by  which  we  mean  not  merely  that  it  learns  to  use  its 
hands,  but  that  it  learns  to  use  them  with  intelligence,  and  to  in- 
terpret its  touch-perceptions.  It  is  equally  evident  that  it  learns 
by  practice  not  only  to  use  its  eyes  in  seeing,  and  to  judge  what 
its  sight-perceptions  signify,  but  also  to  combine  its  sight  and 
touch-perceptions  together,  and  thus  makes  the  one  serve  as  the 
signs  of  the  other. 

As  the  eye  of  the  infant  rolls  or  rests  in  the  socket,  or  is 
caught  for  an  instant  by  the  excitement  of  the  stimulating  light, 
so  the  hands  and  arms,  at  first,  hang  uselessly  from  the  shoulders, 
or  dangle  hither  and  thither,  resting  on  whatever  may  sustain 


§  115.    DEVELOPMENT  AND  GROWTH  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION.     161 

them.  They  can  neither  grasp  nor  hold,  much  less  can  they  be 
carried  to  a  point  on  which  desire  fixes  the  eye ;  nor  can  they,  in 
obedience  to  desire,  hold  and  carry  an  object, — as  food  to  the 
mouth, — or  release  it  when  brought  to  its  destined  place.  All 
these  uses  of  the  hand  must  be  learned  by  attention.  That  they 
are  learned,  is  evident  from  the  aimless  use  of  the  hands  at  first, 
from  the  many  experiments  and  failures  and  final  successes 
which  follow,  and  from  the  gratification  that  is  manifested  at 
success. 

The  earliest  objects  which  attract  the  persistent  attention  of 
the  infant's  eye  are  the  hands.  As  these  are  to  be  the  instru- 
ments of  its  activity  and  the  arbiters  of  its  earthly  destiny,  it  is 
natural  and  appropriate  that  they  should  occupy  the  largest 
share  of  its  earliest  notice.  It  is  impossible  that  it  should  be 
otherwise  f jr  two  or  three  reasons.  They  are  always  before  its 
eyes,  ever  flitting  to  and  fro  in  aimless  and  convulsive  move- 
ments, and  challenging  its  notice  as  they  are  passing  across  its 
limited  field  of  vision.  As  if  to  concentrate  the  whole  energy 
of  the  attention  upon  the  action  of  the  hands,  the  infant  is  short- 
sighted, and,  till  it  is  four  months  old,  observes  only  the  nearest 
objects,  and  then  objects  somewhat  more  remote,  till,  by  gradual 
advances,  the  whole  spectacle  of  the  universe  is  unveiled  and 
opened  to  its  view. 

It  is  manifest  that  the  explanation  of  the  process  by  which  the 
infant  learns  to  connect  and  unite  the  visual  and  tactual  per- 
cepts of  its  hands,  applies  equally  well  to  those  acts  by  which  it 
learns  to  connect  the  percepts  of  all  material  objects,  so  as  to 
view  them  as  single  things.  That  this  power  is  acquired,  and 
neither  innate  nor  connate,  is  obvious.  That  it  is  acquired  by- 
observation  and  experiment,  is  equally  clear.  The  world  of  the 
eye  and  the  world  of  the  hand  are  at  first  diverse  and  apart. 
How  to  bring  them  together,  is  the  first  problem  of  infancy. 
Upon  this  problem  it  tasks  its  earliest  powers.  When  it  is 
achieved  these  two  worlds  rush  together,  coinciding  so  completely 
that  it  seems  inconceivable  that  they  should  ever  have  been  per- 
ceived apart. 

We  need  not  pursue  our  synthesis  further.  We  need  not 
ask  further  how  the  infant  builds  up  the  rest  of  its  knowledge, 
or  acquires  its  infant  skill.  We  need  not  ask  how  the  infant 


162  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  115. 

learns  to  use  its  hands,  to  grasp,  to  hold,  and  to  handle  a  spoon, 
a  fork,  or  a  knife,  or  how  it  learns  to  walk  or  talk  ;  for  all  these 
processes  can  be  explained  by  analogous  activities  which  occur 
within  our  recollection.  Still  less  need  we  ask  how  it  learns  to 
connect  the  percepts  of  smell,  of  taste,  and  of  sound,  with  their 
appropriate  sight  or  touch  objects.  These  problems  present  no 
difficulty  and  require  no  solution. 

It  is  instructive  to  watch  the  timid  yet  adventurous  experiments  which  an  in- 
fant makes,  especially  with  its  hands.  First,  it  strikes  about  in  aimless  efforts, 
or  makes  a  play  for  its  eyes  with  the  half  convulsive  motions  of  its  little  fists. 
By  a  gradual  progress  it  learns  to  reach  after  the  few  objects  which  the  eye  has 
separated  from  the  background — the  infinite  unknown  which  lies  beyond  its 
reach  and  beyond  its  aims.  Soon  it  endeavors  to  lay  hold  of  objects  which  the 
eye  rests  upon,  though  quite  beyond  its  reach.  It  clutches  after  the  distant 
lamp,  the  fire-blaze,  or  the  polished  fire-iron.  By  slow  but  sure  progress  it 
masters  the  objects  within  its  own  apartment,  and  learns  to  apply  its  rude 
standards  of  size  and  distance  to  the  world  within  its  vision,  the  finite  universe 
which  its  four  walls  enclose.  All  beyond  is  infinitude.  During  this  time,  as  has 
been  said,  the  infant  is  short-sighted,  till  many  months  of  its  life  have  elapsed, 
with  the  manifest  design  that  it  should  be  forced  to  master  all  near  objects  before 
it  is  tempted  beyond. 

If  we  would  conceive  how  the  world  out  of  doors  may  appear  to  an  infant 
brought  to  the  window,  after  it  is  somewhat  familiar  with  the  form,  size,  and  re- 
lative positions  of  the  objects  within,  we  may  read  what  is  told  of  Caspar 
Hauser,  who  is  said  to  have  been  confined,  till  the  age  of  seventeen,  in  a  darkened 
apartment,  without  communication  with  nature  by  the  senses,  or  with  man  by 
language.  The  story,  whether  true  or  false,  meets  the  case.  "  I  directed  him," 
says  his  teacher,  "to  look  out  of  the  window,  pointing  to  the  wide  and  extensive 
prospect  of  a  beautiful  landscape  that  presented  itself  in  all  the  glory  of  sum- 
mer, and  asked  him  whether  what  he  saw  was  not  very  beautiful.  He  obeyed, 
but  instantly  drew  back  with  visible  horror,  exclaiming,  (  ugly,  ugly  !'  and  then 
pointing  to  the  white  wall  of  his  chamber,  ho  said,  '  there  not  ugly.'  Several 
years  after,  his  friend  asked  him  if  he  recalled  the  remembrance  of  the  scene, 
and  of  his  own  feelings,  and  he  said  :  '  What  I  then  saw  was  very  ugly ;  for 
when  I  looked  at  the  window,  it  always  appeared  to  me  as  if  a  window-shutter 
had  been  placed  before  my  eyes,  upon  which  a  wall-painter  had  spattered  the  con- 
tents of  his  different  brushes,  filled  with  white,  blue,  green,  yellow,  and  red 
paint,  all  mingled  together.  Single  things,  as  I  now  see  things,  I  could  not  at 
that  time  recognize  and  distinguish  from  each  other.  That  what  1  then  saw  were 
fields,  lulls,  and  houses  j  that  many  things  which  at  that  time  appeared  mich 
larger  were  in  reality  much  smaller,  while  many  other  things  which  appeared 
smaller  were  in  reality  larger  than  other  things,  is  a  fact  of  which  I  was  after- 
ward convinced  in  the  experience  gained  in  my  walks.'  He  also  said,  '  that  in 
the  beginning,  he  could  not  distinguish  between  what  was  really  round  and  what 
was  only  painted  as  round  or  triangular.  The  men  and  horses  represented  on 
sheets  of  pictures  appeared  to  be  precisely  as  men  and  horses  carved  on  wood.' " 
—  Caspar  Hauser:  An  Account,  etc.  (translated  from  the  German1),  pp.  88,89- 
2d  edition.  Boston,  1833. 


§  116.    DEVELOPMENT  AND  GROWTH  OP  SENSE-PERCEPTION.     163 

§  116.  The  phenomena  attendant  upon  the  acquisi- 
tion of  sight  by  persons  who  had  been  blind  from  birth   ^h,"^ntS 
have   already  been   referred  to  as   illustrating   and   s?ght.ery 
establishing  some  of  these  positions.     They  deserve  a 
separate  and  more  particular  notice. 

The  cases  which  are  most  easily  accessible  to  the  English 
reader — which  are,  indeed,  the  most  satisfactory  and  decisive 
of  any  on  record — are  those  reported  in  the  Philosophical  Trans- 
actions of  the  Royal  Society  of  London  for  the  years  respectively, 
1728,  1801,  1807,  1826,  and  1841.  The  persons  operated  upon 
differed  greatly  in  respect  to  age,  mental  capacity,  and  the  degree 
of  their  previous  blindness.  The  observations  and  experiments 
with  all  of  them  may  be  accepted  as  having  established  the  fol- 
lowing facts  and  truths : — 

The  patients,  as  soon  as  they  began  to  see,  saw  objects  not  only 
as  colored,  but  as  extended.  Their  experiences  gave  no  counte- 
nance whatever  to  the  views  of  Stuart  and  Brown,  that  color  can 
be  perceived  without  extension,  and  that  the  two  are  united  by 
inseparable  association.  It  is  true  that  in  almost  every  case  the 
patients,  previously  to  their  recovery  of  sight,  had  some  experience 
of  light,  and  of  course  of  light  superficially  extended  or  diffused. 
But  this  experience  of  light  was  so  obviously  dependent  upon  the 
affection  of  the  retina,  as  to  indicate,  if  not  to  prove,  that  any  ex- 
perience of  light  whatever  involves  the  perception  of  extension. 

The  extension  which  they  perceived  by  sight  was  in  two  di- 
mensions only.  This  was  made  evident  from  a  few  experiments 
instituted  with  express  reference  to  this  point  in  the  case  of  one 
of  the  most  intelligent.  A  solid  cube  and  a  solid  sphere  were 
both  taken  by  him  to  be  simply  discs  or  planes.  A  solid  cube 
and  a  flat  projection  of  the  same  were  both  taken  to  be  flat  and 
in  every  respect  alike.  A  pyramid,  when  turned  toward  him  so 
as  to  present  one  of  its  sides  only,  was  called  a  triangle.  When 
the  pyramid  was  turned  so  as  to  expose  a  part  of  another  side, 
he  could  not  make  out  what  it  was. 

As  to  distance  from  the  eye,  or  the  place  where  objects  are 
located  in  original  perception,  the  testimony  is  unanimous  and 
decisive  that  objects  at  first  seem  very  near — how  near,  could  not 
be  exactly  known — and  that  the  relative  distance  of  each  object 
beyond  this  indeterminate  limit  is  learned  by  experience.  Most 


164  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  ^116. 

of  the  patients  were  afraid  to  move,  lest  they  should  hit  against 
objects  that  were  comparatively  remote.  Two  or  three  of  the 
patients,  in  attempting  to  reach  objects  extended  to  them, 
clutched  behind  the  objects  when  held  near  before  them,  and 
when  more  remote,  only  succeeded  in  grasping  them  after  re- 
peated efforts.  Cheselden's  boy  said,  at  first,  that  all  objects 
touched  his  eye.  The  boy  reported  by  Sir  Edward  Home  (1807) 
said  the  sun  and  the  candle  touched  his  eye,  even  before  the 
cataracts  were  removed ;  and,  just  after  the  first  operation,  said 
the  head  of  the  surgeon  did  the  same.  But  after  a  second  opera- 
tion, he  said  the  sun  and  the  candle  did  not  touch  his  eye.  It  is 
probable  that  the  objects  which  were  said  to  touch  the  eyes,  in 
these  two  cases,  stimulated  them  so  actively  as  to  present  some 
analogy  to  the  muscular  sensations  accompanying  the  touch,  with 
which,  in  every  possible  form,  the  patient  was  so  familiar.  Hence 
they  interpreted  and  called  these  experiences  perceptions  of  touch. 

All  these  persons  were  forced  to  learn  by  experience  to  com- 
bine the  percepts  of  sight  with  the  familiar  impressions  of  touch, 
so  as  to  translate  the  one  into  the  other.  All  experienced  a 
difficulty  similar  to  that  of  Cheselden's  boy  with  the  dog  and 
cat.  When  they  saw  objects  a  second  time,  and  were  not  certain 
that  they  could  recall  them,  they  reached  for  them  with  the 
hand,  and  could  not  be  content  till  they  handled  them  a  second 
time.  Their  judgments  of  size  and  form  all  needed  to  be 
acquired.  Visible  mathematical  figures,  as  a  square,  a  circle, 
and  rectangle,  could  not  be  recognized  till  the  fingers  were  re- 
sorted to.  One  patient  did  make  out  one  or  two  of  these  figures, 
by  drawing  the  outline  with  her  finger  in  the  air,  and,  as  it  were, 
constructing  the  figure  with  the  finger  after  the  lines  presented 
to  the  eye.  Another  could  not  understand  how  drawings  of 
objects  could  represent  the  objects,  till  he  revived  the  percepts 
of  the  objects  by  his  fingers.  Most  of  them  were  embarrassed  by 
drawings  and  pictures,  not  being  able  to  see  likenesses  or  to 
understand  perspective,  or  to  perceive  that  light  and  shade  repre- 
sented form  and  distance.  Their  judgments  of  the  comparative 
size  of  objects  were  embarrassing  to  them.  Cheselden's  boy 
knew  that  his  own  room  was  a  part  of  the  house,  but  could  not 
easily  believe  the  house  was  so  much  larger  than  the  apartment. 

The  testimony  is  uniform,  also,  that,  in  learning  to  see  objects 


§  117.  THE  PRODUCTS  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  165 

as  separate  things,  the  constructive  power  is  brought  into  play, 
requiring  intelligent  attention  and  constant  memory  on  the  part 
of  the  percipient,  and  that  it  is  only  slowly,  at  best,  that  the 
mind  learns  to  separate  material  objects,  to  construct  its  field  of 
vision,  and  to  locate  objects  as  near  and  remote  by  the  various 
signs  which  it  learns  to  interpret.  In  short,  these  observations 
and  experiments  confirm  and  illustrate  all  that  has  been  said  in 
this  chapter  in  respect  to  the  early  development  and  growth  of 
sense-perception. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    PRODUCTS    OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION;     OR,   THE    PERCEPTION 
OF   MATERIAL    THINGS. 

§  117.  Thus  far  we  have  considered  sense-percep-  Material  thinga 
tion  as  a  process,  and  in  its  growth.  We  proceed  J"dt8sense"per" 
next  to  discuss  its  products  as  the  permanent  pos- 
sessions of  the  mind.  We  have  already  explained  of  knowledge 
in  general,  that,  as  an  activity  of  the  intellect,  it  is  brought  to 
its  appropriate  termination  when  its  objects  can,  so  to  speak,  be 
detached  from  the  process  by  which  they  were  so  matured  as 
afterward  to  be  retained,  recalled,  and  recognized.  This  is 
eminently  true  of  sense-perception,  which  is  only  complete  when 
it  results  in  the  knowledge  of  material  things.  A  material  thing 
or  object, as  known  by  sense-perception ,is  a  completed  whole  made  up 
of  separate  percepts.  We  distinguish  the  knowledge  of  things 
from  the  knowledge  of  percepts.  A  percept,  as  has  been  ex- 
plained, is  the  appropriate  object  of  the  mind's  knowledge  through 
a  single  organ  of  sense.  A  thing  is  the  product  of  the  mind's 
knowledge  in  apprehending  several  percepts  as  united  into  a 
finished  whole,  with  the  relations  which  such  a  combination 
involves. 

As  an  example  of  the  difference,  take  an  apple.  The  apple 
seen,  touched,  smelled,  tasted,  and  heard,  are  separate  percepts 
The  object  perceived  by  the  combination  of  all  these  percepts  is 
the  apple,  as  a  material  thing.  The  separate  original  perceptions 


166  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  117  «. 

give  as  many  percepts.     The  original  and  acquired  perceptions, 
when  united,  give  material  objects  or  things. 

Two  questions  now  present  themselves  for  consideration :  By 
what  means,  and  under  what  relations,  does  the  mind  unite  separate 
percepts  into  things  or  objects?  Under  ^hat  conditions  does  the 
mind  so  complete  its  knowledge  of  percepts  and  of  things,  as  to  be 
able  to  retain  and  recall  them  as  permanent  objects  of  knowledge? 

We  begin  with  the  first  of  these  questions :  By  what  steps,  and 
under  what  relations,  does  the  mind  unite  percepts  into  things  or 
material  objects  ?  We  answer : — 

Percepts  are  united  into  things  by  two  successive  steps  or 
stages,  to  each  of  which  there  is  an  appropriate  product.  By  the 
first  the  mind  unites  these  percepts  into  a  material  thing  or 
whole,  under  the  relations  of  space  and  time.  By  the  second,  it 
connects  the  parts  of  the  whole  under  the  relation  of  substance 
and  attributed  quality.  The  several  percepts  united  in  both  these 
relations  constitute  what  is  commonly  known  as  a  material  tiling. 

It  has  already  been  shown  how  the  percepts  of  sight  and  the 
percepts  of  touch  are  referred  by  the  mind  to  the  same  portion 
of  space.  The  seen  hand  and  the  touched  hand  are  found  to  lie 
in  the  same  direction,  and  to  be  at  the  same  distance  from  any 
and  every  part  of  the  body.  In  like  manner  the  apple 
or  the  egg,  the  chair  or  the  table,  which  is  seen  and  that 
which  is  touched  are  found  to  coincide  in  the  same  por- 
tion of  space.  They  are  in  the  same  place.  By  a  similar  process 
the  sentient  body  itself  must  have  been  previously  perceived  to  be 
one  material  thing. 

§  117  a.  This  coincidence  in  place  is  the  product  of 

The  first  stage        ? 

of  perception ;   the   first   constructive  or  synthetic  act  bv    which   the 

limited    to    co-         .     J    ,  f  .  . 

incidence  in       mind,  m  sense-perception,  unites  percepts  into  a  thing. 

space  and  time.  ,'•".*  .        .  . 

buch  an  act  is  complete  when  it  gives  a  material  object 
or  whole,  in  this  lower  sense,  viz.,  a  combination  of  the  percepts 
that  are  appropriate  to  different  organs  of  sense,  by  means 
of  the  relations  of  space  and  time.  The  percepts  of  sight  and 
touch  are  inseparably  united  in  space,  and  this  is  the  earliest 
combination  made  by  the  intellect  which  may  properly  be  called 
a  material  thing.  With  these  two  are  connected  the  percepts 
of  taste,  smell,  and  sound,  at  first  under  the  relation  of  simulta- 
neous occurrence  in  time. 


§  117 «.  THE  PRODUCTS  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  167 

It  is  obvious  that  the  several  percepts,  when  viewed  as  con- 
nected into  a  whole  under  these  relations,  have  a  very  unequal 
relative  importance.  The  percepts  of  sight  and  touch,  to  those 
who  can  see  and  feel,  as  they  are  denned  in  place  and  eminently 
objective,  constitute  the  material  object  as  it  is  usually  conceived 
and  named.  The  percepts  of  smell,  sound  and  taste,  are  its 
invariable  attendants  in  time,  until  they  are  connected  with  it  by 
another  relation.  To  those  who  see,  even  though  they  can  also 
feel,  the  leading  percepts  are  those  of  sight.  The  name  of  an 
object  suggests  its  visible  form  and  color,  etc.,  rather  than  the 
object  as  touched ;  a  certain  and  decisive  evidence  that  the  object 
as  seen  is  that  which  is  most  prominent  and  attractive  to  the 
mind,  and  therefore  is  most  readily  recalled  to  the  imagination. 
To  the  blind,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  object  as  touched,  or 
the  tangible  percept,  which  is  suggested  by  the  name,  and  is  re- 
presented to  his  imagination  as  the  thing  perceived.  The  other 
percepts,  of  taste,  smell,  and  sound,  are  connected  with  the  com- 
bined percepts  of  touch  and  sight  less  readily,  and  by  a  looser  bond, 
As  at  first  experienced,  they  are  referred  to  the  sentient  organism, 
and  are  less  readily  separated  from  it.  They  are  more  sensational 
and  subjective,  less  perceptional  and  objective.  As  to  the  man- 
ner and  the  relations  by  which  they  are  first  connected  with  the 
percepts  of  sight  and  touch,  philosophers  are  not  agreed.  It 
must  at  least  be  true,  that  whatever  other  relations  unite  them  to 
material  things,  they  must  at  the  very  earliest  period  be  their 
constant  attendants  in  place  and  time. 

The  conception  of  a  material  thing  or  whole,  made  up  of  ex- 
tended parts  or  single  percepts,  is,  however,  very  equivocal  in  its 
import  and  varied  in  its  application.  To  an  infant  with  limited 
experience,  the  greater  part  of  an  apartment  may  be  perceived 
as  a  single  object  or  thing ;  the  only  separable  objects  in  it  being 
the  chair,  table,  and  a  few  utensils,  the  position  of  which  is  often 
changed.  To  a  child,  a  horse  and  vehicle,  seen  together  for  the 
first  time,  may  be  a  whole,  or  a  single  object.  The  savage  per- 
ceives a  ship  or  steamer  as  one  huge  animal.  Many  observations 
and  experiments,  much  information  from  others,  repeated  lessons 
inferred  from  words  and  names  properly  applied,  are  required  to 
enable  the  child  to  distinguish  things  as  wholes  and  parts ;  to 
hold  apart  objects  that  should  not  be  united;  and  to  unite  objects 


168  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §118. 

that  should  not  be  divided.  The  point  of  view  from  which 
objects  are  observed,  and  the  purpose  or  use  to  which  they  are  to 
be  applied,  direct  in  the  formation  and  application  of  names,  and 
determine  whether  this  or  that  object  shall  be  regarded  as  a 
whole  or  part  of  a  thing.  A  house  with  its  grounds,  the  house 
alone,  an  apartment,  a  door,  a  window,  the  smallest  perceived 
portion  of  either,  each  and  all,  are  things  or  parts  of  things, 
according  to  the  principle  or  use  which  regulates  the  application 
of  the  respective  terms.  But  whether  a  perceived  whole  is 
greater  or  smaller  in  its  spatial  dimensions,  it  must  have  denned 
spatial  dimensions  and  be  capable  of  being  perceived  by  one  of 
the  leading  senses.  Whatever  the  thing  may  be,  the  percepts 
of  which  it  consists  must  at  least  be  capable  of  being  perceived 
as  occupying  the  same  space,  and  of  occurring  together  in  time. 
§  118.  By  the  second  stage  or  step  of  the  percep- 

The    second  J 

stage :  The  re-  tive  process,  the  several  percepts  or  parts  are  con- 

lation  of  sub-  .  .  . 

stance  and  at-  nected  with  one  another,  or  with  the  whole  which 
they  constitute,  as  substance  and  attribute.  Thus  the 
objects  of  the  sense  of  touch  are  known  as  hard  or  soft,  rough  or 
smooth,  elastic  or  non-elastic,  etc.,  etc.  Those  of  sight  are  red, 
yellow,  orange,  violet,  and  green;  those  of  hearing  are  sharp, 
smooth,  harsh,  and  sweet ;  those  of  smell  are  pungent,  exhilarant, 
fetid ;  and  all  these  qualities  are  ascribed  to  an  object  to  which 
they  belong,  and  of  which  they  are  affirmed  to  be  attributes, 
Certain  relations  of  time  and  extension,  as  long  and  short,  square 
and  round,  are  in  like  manner  treated  as  properties  or  attributes. 
They  are  more  than  parts  of  the  wholes  which  they  help  to  consti- 
tute; they  are  connected  with  a  being  or  agent,  the  nature  of 
which  they  define,  the  presence  of  which  they  signify,  and  the 
powers  of  which  they  manifest. 

It  is  not  here  in  place  to  discuss  the  nature  of  this  special 
relation  which  has  occasioned  so  much  speculation  and  dispute 
among  metaphysicians  (P.  iv.  c.  vii\  It  is  sufficient  to  say  here, 
that  as  we  have  already  shown  that  knowledge  of  every  kind 
necessarily  gives  beings  and  relations,  or  beings  as  related,  we 
are  prepared  to  understand  the  definition  of  a  substance  as  a 
being  that  is  capable  of  being  distinguished  by  relations ;  and  of 
attributes,  qualities,  and  properties,  as  relations  used  to  distinguish 
ind  describe  or  define  beings.  That  the  objects  of  perception, 


§118.  THE  PRODUCTS  OF  SENSE -PEE  CEPTION.  36? 

both  wholes  and  parts — i.  e.,  combined  and  single  percepts — are 
in  fact  connected  in  this  way,  is  too  obvious  to  require  illustra- 
tion and  proof. 

The  relations  most  frequently  employed  as  attributes  are  the 
relations  of  time,  space,  and  causality.  As  soon  as  beings  are 
known  as  enduring  for  a  longer  or  shorter  period,  or  having  this 
or  that  size  or  form,  and  these  relations  are  used  to  designate  or 
distinguish  them  from  other  beings,  these  relations  are  attributed 
to  them  as  distinguishing  characteristics.  As  soon  as  the  sense- 
object  is  known — i.  e.,  thought  of  as  the  producer  of  sensations, 
as  of  smell,  taste,  or  sound,  it  would  be  known  as  endowed  with 
distinguishable  capacities  to  produce  these  effects.  The  sensations 
would,  in  their  turn,  be  referred  to  these  beings  as  their  causes  or 
originators.  No  illustration  is  needed  to  prove  that  the  sense- 
element  in  these  three  percepts  is  very  early  regarded  as  an 
effect.  So  far  as  the  mind  is  passive  in  sensation,  it  must  always 
be  so  regarded.  The  sensation  is  experienced  when  the  object  or 
being  is  near;  it  is  felt  less  intensely  when  the  object  is  remote; 
its  quality  or  intensity  vary  with  the  varying  conditions  of  the 
object.  An  object  with  a  certain  form,  feel,  or  color,  when 
brought  into  contact  with  the  tongue  or  palate,  causes  a  certain 
taste.  Touched  by  the  hand,  no  special  sensation  follows;  but 
touched  by  the  tongue  and  palate,  there  ensues  the  specific  sensa- ' 
tion  of  taste.  The  object  touched  might  have  been  regarded 
simply  as  a  being  or  thing;  but  the  object  tasted  is  known  aa 
also  occasioning  a  sensation. 

It  is  conceivable,  as  has  been  already  suggested,  that  before 
these  coexistent  and  successive  percepts  and  sensations  are 
known  as  substance  and  attribute,  they  should  be  known  as  con- 
stant attendants,  and  that,  simply  as  conjoined,  the  presence 
or  the  thought  of  the  one  should,  under  the  laws  of  association, 
suggest  the  thought  of  the  other.  Under  this  relation  sense- 
objects  are  known  to  animals,  which  can  not  and  do  not  distin- 
guish the  relation  of  conjunction  from  that  of  causation.  If  one 
sensation  has  been  experienced  in  connection  with  another,  the 
repetition  of  the  one  brings  up  the  image  of  the  other,  and  the 
pain  and  pleasure,  the  hope  and  fear  which  are  appropriate  to  it. 
The  dog  connects  with  the  whip  in  the  hand  of  his  master  the 
thought  of  chastisement  and  pain ;  with  the  sight  of  his  gun  or 
8 


170  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  118. 

his  walking  stick,  the  excitement  of  sport  or  of  a  ramble.  It  is 
not  easy  to  assert  when  and  how  the  two  relations  are  distin- 
guished by  man ;  that  they  are  distinguished,  is  obvious,  for 
reasons  which  this  is  not  the  place  to  give. 

That  it  is  not  till  the  second  or  advanced  stage 
of  the  perceptive  process  that  percepts  are  connected 
under  the  relation  of  substance  and  attribute, is  still 
further  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  knowledge  in- 
volved is  indirect  and  reflex,  as  distinguished  from  that  which  is 
direct  and  objective.  It  supposes  the  objects  related — the  subject 
of  sensations,  and  the  object  which  occasions  them — to  be  more  or 
less  familiar,  and  that  both  subject  and  object  are  projected  in  the 
view  of  the  mind  upon  the  same  plane,  so  that  both  become 
objects  to  its  thought.  A  thing  cannot  be  known  as  capable  of 
producing  sensations  as  effects,  unless  the  body  or  the  soul,  one 
or  both,  are  known  as  the  conditions  or  subjects  of  its  action ; 
and  this  requires  that  they  should  be  placed  afront  the  reflecting 
mind  by  a  special  effort,  which  involves  a  maturity  of  discipline 
which  time  alone  can  develop.  Moreover,  it  supposes  some 
progress  in  generalization,  and  some  sort  of  induction.  Many 
objects  must  have  been  touched  and  seen,  before  they  are  so  far 
recognized  as  similar,  as  to  be  taken  for  the  same  in  their  causal 
efficiency.  Many  experiences  must  be  had  with  the  sensations 
of  smell,  taste,  and  sound,  before  these  could  be  invariably 
referred  to  the  same  substances,  because  dependent  on  their  pro- 
perties or  attributes. 

In  one  sense  it  is  true,  that  an  act  of  sense-perception  is  not 
complete,  and  its  product  is  not  perfected,  until  the  soul's  higher 
energies  are  awakened,  and  the  object  of  them  has  been  viewed 
in  the  higher  relations.  The  human  being  can  scarcely  be  said 
truly  to  have  perceived  even  a  pebble  as  a  man,  till  he  has 
brought  into  action  all  the  powers  with  which  he  is  endowed  as  a 
man.  The  infant's  eye  may  not?  glisten  with  the  penetrating 
sharpness  of  the  eye'of  the  young  eagle,  and  yet  may  wear  the 
softer  lustre  which  betokens  the  dawning  intelligence.  The  soul 
leaps  into  no  single  form  of  activity,  least  of  all  into  the  full 
development  of  its  higher  powers. 

Thus  far  we  have  conceived  the  substance  as  an  object  seen  and  touched,  and 
Its  attributes  as  capacities  to  occasion  the  sensations  of  smell,  taste,  and  sound* 


§  119.  THE  PRODUCTS  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  171 

We  have  connected  a  percept  with  a  percept  as  substance  and  attribute — a  lead- 
ing percept,  as  of  sight,  with  a  sensational  percept  as  of  smell — and  called  the 
one  a  thing,  and  the  other  its  quality.  If  we  push  our  inquiries  a  step  back- 
ward, and  inquire,  Which  is  the  substance  and  which  the  attribute  when  the 
object  consists  solely  of  a  percept  of  touch  and  a  percept  of  sight  conjoined?  we 
answer,  That  sense-percept  is  made  the  substance,  which  is  regarded  in  the 
relation  of  cause  to  the  sense-element  involved  in  the  other.  The  object  as 
touched  and  the  object  as  seen,  may  respectively  be  substances,  in  their  respective 
relations  to  the  sensations  of  sight  and  of  touch.  We  say,  it  is  white — i.  e.,  tho 
object  which  I  touch;  and  again,  it  is  hard — i.  e.,  the  object  I  see — the  touch- 
percept  and  sight-percept  being  each  in  their  turn  taken  as  beings. 

We  may  narrow  our  view  still  more,  and  inquire  which  is  the  being  or  sub- 
stance, and  which  the  attribute  or  quality,  when  we  have  a  single  percept  only, 
and  view  it  in  relation  to  the  sentient  mind?  We  reply,  The  object,  perceived  by 
sense  to  be,  is  known  as  a  substance  when  considered  as  the  producer  of  the 
sensation  which  is  the  condition  of  the  perception.  The  tangible  or  visible 
object,  as  a  being,  is  distinguishable  as  a  space-occupying  or  extended  something. 
As  causing  or  producing  the  sensations  of  sight  or  touch,  it  is  known  as  possess- 
ing the  attributes  of  color  or  touch.  The  elements  involved  in  every  act  of  sense- 
perception  provide  for  the  possibility  of  this  relation.  But  the  relation  is  not, 
in  fact,  discerned  until  the  mind  projects  and  brings  up  the  perceived  non-ego 
and  the  sentient  ego  into  the  same  field  of  vision,  by  a  reflex  and  comparing  act. 

The  sensation — i.  e.,  the  effect — is  not  the  property  or  quality  which  produces 
it,  though  the  two  are  called  by  the  same  name.  Sweetness  means  one  thing 
when  it  is  said  to  be  in  the  sugar,  and  another  when  it  is  experienced  by  the 
sentient  soul.  The  heat,  in  one  sense,  is,  and  in  another  is  not,  in  the  fire. 

§  119.  Our  second  question  is,    Under  what  eondi- 

The  conditions 

raoftgdoes  the  mind  attain  a  definite,  permanent  know-      of  complete 

„     .          ,  .  „  .  ,       ,  perception. 

ledge  of  the  objects  of  sense-perception,  whether  per- 
cepts or  things,  so  that  they  can  be  readily  recalled  and  recog- 
nized ?  It  is  only  when  they  are  placed  so  completely  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  mind  as  to  be  at  its  disposal,  that  the  process  of  per- 
ception can  be  said  to  be  complete.  When  this  is  done,  the  object 
of  perception  is  converted  into  an  idea  or  image.  The  real  object 
apprehended  by  the  mind  becomes  an  intellectual  object,  having 
a  purely  ideal  or  psychical  existence.  By  some  writers  the  spe- 
cial term  ideation  is  appropriated  to  this  process.  Sense-percep- 
tion is  said  to  be  complete  in  the  highest  sense  when  its  object  is 
ideated,  or  becomes  an  idea. 

But  as  every  perceived  object  is  composed  of  parts,  it  follows 
that  the  perception  of  a  thing  can  only  be  complete  when  the 
mind  separates  by  distinct  analysis  the  parts  or  percepts  of  which 
the  thing  is  composed,  and  unites  them  by  perfected  synthesis. 
In  other  words,  the  mind  must  distinguish  the  constituent  per- 


172  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  119. 

cepts  by  completed  acts  of  original  perception,  and  combine  these 
percepts  into  things,  by  finished  acts  of  acquired  perception. 
We  are  naturally  led  to  consider  the  conditions  of  complete  per- 
ception of  the  parts  and  relations  of  material  things. 

(1.)  Objects  are  most  easily  distinguished  which  are  appre- 
hended with  special  energy — which  are  very  strikingly  contrasted 
with,  or  which  are  similar  to  other  objects.  A  lively  color,  a 
loud  sound,  a  positive  taste,  etc.,  are  more  readily  apprehended 
than  a  color  which  is  faint,  a  sound  which  is  feeble,  or  a  taste 
which  is  not  positive.  Things  are  more  or  less  readily  per- 
ceived with  effect  and  permanence  according  as  the  per- 
cepts of  which  they  are  constituted  are  more  or  less  readily 
known. 

The  definiteness  with  which  objects  are  perceived  depends  in 
part  also  on  their  likeness  or  unlikeness  to  other  objects  in  con- 
nection with  which  they  are  presented  to  the  mind.  Of  two  per- 
cepts and  two  things  that  are  very  similar,  and  of  two  that  are 
very  unlike,  those  are  more  likely  to  be  perceived  which  are  in 
striking  contrast  to  each  other,  than  those  which  closely  resemble 
one  another.  Two  colors,  two  sounds,  etc.,  as  well  as  two  apples 
or  two  paintings,  are  each  more  readily  perceived  and  retained  if 
they  are  strikingly  contrasted,  than  if  they  are  very  similar.  The 
ground  of  the  likeness  or  unlikeness,  the  resemblance  or  contrast, 
is  in  part  objective, — pertaining  solely  to  the  object  per- 
ceived. In  part  it  is  subjective,  and  arises  from  the  natural 
or  acquired  capability  of  the  individual  to  feel  and  know.  Thus, 
one  class  of  persons  are  physically  incapable  of  distinguishing 
different  colors,  i.  e.,  those  who  are  color-blind.  Others,  who  can 
discern  the  colors  which  are  commonly  named,  can  with  difficulty 
distinguish  shades  of  color  that  are  nearly  allied.  Some  persons 
are  very  insensible  to  differences  and  similarities  of  sounds  to 
which  others  are  keenly  alive.  Even  when  the  original  sensi- 
bilities of  the  senses  and  aptitudes  of  the  intellect  present  no  diver- 
sity, there  are  the  greatest  possible  differences  of  susceptibility, 
arising  from  differences  of  habit  and  attention. 

(2.)  Motion  heightens  the  contrasts  of  perceived  objects,  and 
gives  definiteness  to  the  outline  and  limits,  especially  of  visible 
percepts.  To  the  infant's  eye,  moving  objects  are  the  first  which, 
so  to  speak,  are  separated  from  the  undistinguished  mass  of 


§  119.  THE  PRODUCTS  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  178 

blended  color,  in  which  the  world  of  matter  is  at  first  arrayed. 
From  this  extended  surface  of  color  certain  objects  are  detached, 
as  the  moving  lamp,  the  walking  person,  the  portable  furniture 
and  utensils.  They  pass  to  and  fro  athwart  the  background  upon 
which  they  are  projected,  and  are  brought  into  contrast  with  its 
unbroken  surface,  till  they  take  their  place  in  the  memory,  as  the 
first  distinct  objects  with  which  it  is  provided.  By  degrees  this 
undistinguished  mass  of  blended  light  and  shade,  of  form  and 
color,  is  broken  up,  as  one  and  another  separate  percept  and  dis- 
tinguished thing  is  detached  by  the  mind's  observation  and  is  set 
apart  in  the  mind's  storehouse  as  a  distinct  idea.  The  influence 
of  motion  is  not  limited  to  visible  objects.  It  is  most  important 
in  giving  distinct  percepts  to  the  sense  of  touch.  The  hand  must 
move  over  the  surface  felt,  or  the  surface  must  move  over  the 
hand,  to  leave  distinct  percepts  of  its  limits  and  qualities. 

(3.)  Repetition  is  an  efficient  and  often  an  indispensable  condi- 
tion to  the  completion  of  an  act  of  perception.  Even  the  simple 
percept,  as  a  sound,  a  color,  a  taste,  is  more  perfectly  mastered 
by  being  apprehended  in  successive  acts  of  attention.  If  several 
percepts  are  to  be  united  as  a  single  and  separate  thing,  it  is  still 
more  requisite  that  they  be  often  apprehended  by  the  same  or 
continuously  connected  acts,  in  order  that  the  object  may  be 
brought  completely  into  possession  and  placed  entirely  at  com- 
mand. This  is  especially  necessary  if  the  percept,  or  object,  by 
reason  of  its  spatial  extent  or  the  complexity  of  its  elements,  is 
beyond  the  power  of  the  mind  to  master  in  a  single  act.  In  some 
cases,  repetition  serves  to  make  the  impression  more  vivid  and 
definite.  In  others,  it  is  required  in  order  that  there  be  any  im- 
pression at  all. 

(a.)  Eepetition  often  excites  and  gratifies  the  interest  of  the 
soul  in  the  objects  perceived,  and  thus  arouses  greater  energy  of 
attention. 

This  is  illustrated  by  the  example  of  many  single  percepts.  A 
color  or  sound  gives  pleasure  when  once  perceived.  Let  it  solicit 
the  mind's  notice  a  second  time,  and  the  remembrance  of  the 
gratification  which  it  gave,  will  arouse  the  mind  to  attend  with  in- 
creased energy  to  the  object  which  had  previously  imparted  so 
pleasant  an  experience.  In  the  recollection  of  that  experience, 
and  with  the  hope  of  its  renewal,  it  summons  again  all  its  energy  of 


174  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  119. 

perception.  The  result  is  a  definite  remembrance  of  erery  thing 
which  the  man  is  competent  or  prepared  to  know  in  respect  to  it. 
When  the  attention  is  solicited  again,  the  mind  at  once  responds 
to  the  call,  withdraws  its  divided  or  distracted  activity,  and,  ac- 
cording to  its  sense  of  the  value  of  the  good  to  be  enjoyed,  re- 
sponds with  an  energetic  and  attentive  gaze. 

(6.)  Eepetition  is  still  more  essential  to  enable  the  mind  to 
unite  into  a  whole  the  separate  parts  of  objects  which  cannot  be 
grasped  by  a  single  act  of  perception.  The  examples  already 
cited,  belong  to  those  objects  which  require  but  a  single  act  of 
attention  in  order  to  be  completely  possessed  by  the  mind.  There 
is  a  very  large  class  of  objects,  however,  which  consist  of  too 
many  parts  to  be  known  by  a  single  effort  of  perception.  These 
must  be  combined  together  into  one,  by  successive  acts.  For 
example,  if  we  perceive  a  mathematical  figure  with  a  very  irre- 
gular and  complicated  outline,  it  is  necessary  that  we  view  it  in 
separate  portions,  in  order  to  master  the  whole.  Not  only  is  this 
true,  but  we  often  need  to  review  each  portion  which  we  have 
already  perceived,  in  order  to  connect  it  with  the  part  which  was 
perceived  previously.  -After  we  have  followed  the  outline  by 
repeated  acts  of  observation,  we  need  often  to  review  the  whole 
as  a  whole  by  a  rapid  succession  of  acts,  or  by  a  single  glance 
of  the  eye  to  unite  the  several  parts.  If  we  look  at  a  painting, 
we  study  its  several  parts,  perhaps  for  hours  together,  in  order  to 
gain  and  carry  away  a  distinct  and  satisfactory  impression  of  the 
whole.  If  we  look  at  the  front  of  an  edifice  that  is  elaborately 
adorned,  we  follow  the  several  features  one  by  one  in  their  order, 
often  returning  upon  our  course,  that  we  may  retain  the  per- 
ceptions which  we  have  gained.  « 

The  first  efforts  of  the  eye  upon  such  an  object  are  like 
voyages  of  discovery  or  movements  of  military  reconnaissance. 
They  serve  the  same  purpose  as  the  use  of  the  finding-glass  of  a 
telescope.  The  eye  runs  hither  and  there  with  a  vague  and 
quickly -shifting  gaze.  It  finds  one  feature  after  another  which 
excites  its  interest  and  attracts  its  attention,  and  thus  learns  in  a 
general  way  what  material  is  present  for  it  to  work  upon.  After 
this  preliminary  work,  a  second  and  still  another  look  may  be 
required,  that  the  mind  may  determine  which  of  these  parts  it  is 
worth  while  to  unite  together  into  a  continuous  and  connected 


§  119.  THE  PRODUCTS  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  175 

whole,  by  successive  acts  of  attentive  perception.  That  this 
theory  is  correct,  is  manifest  from  the  difference  which  we  notice 
between  observing  a  complex  object  when  seen  for  the  first  time, 
and  when  it  has  become  familiar  by  repeated  acts  of  perception. 
If  the  object  is  new  and  strange,  we  must  view  it  again  and 
again  in  order  to  bring  away  any  distinct  perception.  If  it  is 
familiar,  or  like  a  familiar  object,  a  single  and  hasty  look  is  often 
enough  to  secure  a  clear  and  permanent  knowledge.  In  such  a 
case  we  know  beforehand  what  we  expect  to  find,  and  to  what 
points  we  need  to  direct  the  eye  in  order  to  assure  ourselves. 

When  the  object  contains  a  greater  number  of  parts  than  we 
can  grasp  at  a  single  view,  there  is  need  of  repetition  for  another 
reason.  Let  the  outline  of  a  mathematical  figure  be  made  up 
of  many  sides,  or  the  face  of  an  edifice  consist  of  a  very  great 
number  of  salient  features,  and  it  is  impossible — let  either  be 
ever  so  familiar — that  they  should  be  perceived  distinctly  by  any 
single  effort  of  perception.  The  eye  must  pass  around  the  outline, 
or  sweep  across  the  face  by  successive  acts,  and  master  each  portion 
in  detail,  in  order  to  perceive  the  whole  so  as  to  recall  it. 

Here  again  we  notice  a  striking  difference  between  objects  that 
are  regular  and  uniform,  and  those  which  are  irregular  and  mul- 
tiform. Of  two  figures  of  fifty  sides,  let  one  be  a  regular  and  an- 
other an  irregular  polygon.  Let  the  fagade  of  a  building  be  made 
up  of  similar  parts  combined  after  a  uniform  law  of  recurrence 
and  symmetry;  or  let  the  parts  have  no  relation  of  likeness, 
order,  or  correspondence.  A  few  repetitions  of  attention  enable 
us  to  master  the  one ;  very  many  are  required  to  put  us  in  posses- 
sion of  the  other. 

(4.)  Familiar  objects  are  readily  and  rapidly .  perceived. 
Novel  or  unfamiliar  objects  are  slowly  and  painfully  mastered. 
The  fact  is  unquestioned.  The  explanation  of  it  is  furnished  by 
the  principles  which  have  been  already  laid  down.  ' 

To  familiar  shades  of  color,  sounds,  forms,  touches,  tastes,  and 
smells,  the  mind  is  ready  to  attend,  being  guided  by  its  remem- 
brance of  what  it  had  perceived  before,  and  incited  to  attention 
by  remembered  pleasure.  If  ihe  combination  is  also  familiar — 
i.  e.,  the  union  of  the  taste  or  smell  with  the  color,  or  of  the  touch 
with  the  form — the  same  law  holds  good.  In  looking  at  an  indi- 
vidual chair  or  table  which  I  have  often  perceived,  or  the  aspect 


176  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  119. 

of  which  is  familiar,  one  percept  prepares  the  way  for  another 
— the  color  for  the  form,  the  form  for  the  weight ;  one  part  for  an- 
other, as  the  leg  of  the  chair  or  the  table  for  the  back  of  the  one 
or  the  bed  of  the  other ;  so  that  the  mind  is  at  once  prepared 
for  what  it  expects  and  readily  apprehends  what  it  is  wait- 
ing for. 

But  let  the  object  be  unfamiliar,  we  are  detained  upon  its  parts 
in  the  way  already  explained,  in  order  that  we  may  discover 
what  they  are,  so  far  as  to  decide  which,  if  any,  shall  receive  our 
attention.  If  a  novel  piece  of  furniture  is  seen,  or  a  new  imple- 
ment, or  an  edifice  singularly  planned,  or  a  work  of  art  executed 
after  peculiar  principles,  or  if  an  animal  or  plant  of  an  unfami- 
liar species  or  a  dress  of  a  new  fashion  is  presented  for  our  in- 
spection, we  find  it  necessary  to  look  again  and  again  at  the  ob- 
ject. "We  must  feel  our  way  step  by  step  and  part  by  part,  to 
find  the  parts  of  which  it  consists,  so  that  we  can  recall  them. 

The  acts  of  repeated  perception  which  are  required  in  such  cases,  are  not  to  be 
confounded  with  acts  of  recognition,  or  with  acts  of  comparison  for  the  purpose  of  dis- 
cerning similarities  or  other  relations. 

Acts  of  recognition  and  of  comparison  do  indeed  usually  accompany  these 
efforts  of  perception.  But  though  they  often  facilitate,  they  do  not  constitute 
the  acts.  This  is  manifest  from  the  analysis  of  the  acts.  A  single  percept,  or 
an  object  consisting  of  several  percepts,  must  first  be  perceived  in  order  to  be  re  • 
cognized.  It  must  be  known  the  first  time,  or  by  a  first  act,  in  order  to  be  known 
the  second  time,  or  by  a  subsequent  act.  So,  two  objects  must  be  perceived,  before 
they  can  be  compared  and  discerned  to  be  similar  or  alike. 

Some  psychologists  distinguish  perception  from  sensation  thus  :  "  a  sensation, 
when  recognized  as  similar  to  one  previously  experienced,  becomes  a  perception." 
So  Herbert  Spencer:  "As  there  can  be  no  classification  or  recognition  of  objects 
without  perception  of  them;  so  there  can  be  no  perception  of  them  without  classi- 
fication or  recognition."  "  A  perception  of  it  [an  object]  can  arise  only  when  the 
group  of  sensations  is  consciously  coordinated,  and  their  meaning  understood." 
"  The  perception  of  any  object  therefore,  is  impossible,  save  under  the  form  of  re- 
cognition  or  classification."  {Principles  of  Psychology,  $  46.) 

Morell  says :  "  To  perceive  a  thing,  means,  first  of  all,  to  recognize  it ;"  and 
again  :  "  When  we  come  to  perceive  special  objects,  then  it  is  implied  that  we  not 
only  recognize,  but  that  we  also  begin  to  classify  them."— (Introduction  to  Mental 
Philosophy,  pp.  85,  86.  London,  1862.)  That  this  is  really  impossible  and  logi- 
cally self-contradictory,  is  obvious  from  what  has  been  said.  Recognition  and 
classification  attend  and  assist  perception,  but  they  do  not  constitute  the  act.  It 
is  obvious  that  this  definition  would  exclude  from  the  act  of  perception-proper,  all 
that  is  material  to  it,  or  by  which  it  is  distinguished  from  sensation-proper,  viz., 
the  apprehension  of  spatial  relations  and  of  externality.  Neither  of  these  are 
necessarily  involved  in  the  recognition  or  comparison  of  sensations.  The  vie* 
would  shut  us  up  to  a  purely  idealistic  theory. 


§  119.  THE  PRODUCTS  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  177 

(5.)  To  complete  and  successful  perception,  some  continuance 
of  time  is  necessary.  This  necessity  for  time  is  partly  physical 
or  organic,  and  partly  mental  or  psychical. 

The  organic  necessity  lies  in  the  unexplained  and  ultimate  fact, 
that  in  order  to  a  complete  and  definite  physical  impression  upon 
the  organ,  there  must  be  a  continued  action  of  its  excitant  or 
stimulus  for  a  brief  but  appreciable  period.  The  eye  and  the  ear, 
and  the  other  organs,  with  their  connected  nervous  apparatus, 
must  be  occupied  with  that  which  excites  them,  in  order  to  give 
a  sensation  of  which  the  mind  can  avail  itself  to  distinct  percep- 
tion. Indeed,  after  the  stimulant  has  ceased  to  affect  the  organ, 
the  impression,  and  with  it  the  perception,  remains ;  as  is  evident 
from  the  experiment  by  which  we  revolve  a  burning  coal  so 
swiftly  as  to  perceive  a  circle  of  fire. 

The  psychical  necessity  is  obvious  from  the  fact  that  the  mind 
can  remit  or  increase  the  energy  of  the  organ  by  its  own  volun- 
tary agency,  and  that,  to  exert  this  energy  also  requires  time, 
if  for  no  other  reason,  because  the  mind  acts  through  and  under 
the  laws  of  its  physical  organism.  An  increase  of  energy  in  a 
part  or  the  whole  of  the  organism  is  an  affair  of  time,  and  is 
often  a  measure  of  its  lapse. 

Jugglers,  prestidigitators,  etc.,  perform  many  of  their  feats  by 
having  acquired  a  capacity  of  rapid  movement  which  does  not 
allow  time  enough  for  the  sense-parceptions  of  lookers-on  to 
respond  to  the  objects.  Often  they  do  not  furnish  time  enough 
for  the  requisite  impressions  to  be  made  upon  the  sense-organs. 
Still  more  frequently  they  do  not  furnish  time  in  which  percep- 
tion or  intelligence  may  perceive  the  objects  in  their  relations,  so 
as  to  discriminate,  construct,  and  interpret  what  the  sense-organs 
respond  to.  Quickness  of  movement  and  quickness  of  thought 
are  the  prime  requisites  for  a  successful  juggler.  To  this  should 
be  added  the  capacity  to  divert  the  attention  by  lively  sallies, 
by  sudden  gestures,  rapid  speech,  exciting  tones,  and  a  bold 
address,  as  well  as  skill  in  inventing  the  physical  appliances 
of  illusion.  A  man  endowed  by  nature  with  aptitudes  like 
these,  who  has  learned  to  make  them  efficient  by  art,  can 
almost  cheat  the  eyes  and  ears  of  the  soberest  and  most  practiced 
observer. 

8* 


178  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §120. 

§  120.  It  is  in  place  here  to  consider  the  doctrine 
which  is  insisted  on  so  earnestly,  particularly  by 
at  a  Dugald  stewart  (Elsmsnts,  c.  ii.),  that  the  mind,  in 
perception,  can  a'.tjnd  to  but  one  object  at  a  time. 
This  position  he  endeavors  to  sustain  and  enforce  by  examples 
like  the  following:  In  viewing  a  mathematical  figure,  say  of  a 
thousand  sides,  we  view  each  side  by  a  separate  effort  of  atten- 
tive regard,,  till  we  have  passed  around  the  outline  by  successive 
acts  of  perception.  The  eye  and  the  mind  do  this  so  rapidly, 
that  when  the  outline  is  not  very  complicated,  they  seem  to  grasp 
and  mister  the  whole  by  a  single  and  instantaneous  act.  So,  in 
listening  to  a  concert  of  music,  we  think  we  hear — i.  e.,  atten- 
tively listen  to — all  the  instruments  and  separate  parts  together, 
whereas  we  in  fact  can  attend  to  but  one.  But  whan  we  seem  to 
ourselves  to  listen  to  all,  we  in  fact  pass  so  rapidly  from  one  to 
ano  her  a?  to  think  we  attend  to  all  tog3thar.  A  single  object  he 
d3naes  as  the  minimum  visible  in  connaction  with  the  eye — that 
is,  the  smallest  extension  of  color  or  shaded  light  by  which  the 
eye  can  be  affected — and  would  by  a  similar  rule,  assert  that  the 
minimum  audible,  or  the  simplest  and  shortest  appreciable  sound 
only,  can  be  attended  to  at  a  single  instant. 

The  theory  of  Stewart  labors  undar  the  following  difficulties : 
It  excludes  the  possibility  of  comparing  objects  with  one  another. 
In  order  to  compare  objects  so  as  to  discern  that  they  are  alike 
or  diverse,  they  must  be  considered  together — that  is,  they  must 
be  attentively  perceived  in  combination.  In  the  cases  supposed 
by  Stewart  of  the  several  sides  of  a  complicated  outline,  or  the 
separate  sounds  of  the  instruments  in  an  orchestra,  the  parts  of 
the  figure  must  be  considered  together,  to  be  known  to  be  adjoin- 
ing, near,  or  remote :  the  separate  notes  or  sounds  also  must  be 
heard  together,  to  be  discerned  to  be  alike  or  harmonious,  to  be 
known  as  higher  or  lower,  or  to  be  connected  as  before  and  after 
one  another.  If  the  mind  could  apprehend  no  more  than  a 
single  object  at  once,  it  would  be  forever  and  entirely  cut  off 
from  the  most  important  part  of  its  knowledge,  viz.,  the  knowledge 
of  relations;  or  every  description  of  knowledge  by  synthesis. 

It  might  perhaps  be  said,  that  what  Stewart  intended  to  assert 
was  this :  that  in  sense-perception  the  mind  can  only  attend  to 


§  120.  THE  PRODUCTS  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  179 

one  object  at  the  same  indivisible  instant;  that  in  those  cases  in 
which  it  compares  two  objects,  it  connects  an  object  perceived 
with  an  object  represented,  a  percept  with  a  representation.  For 
example,  in  viewing  a  complex  outline,  or  hearing  the  sounds 
of  an  orchestra,  it  sees  at  the  present  instant  a  single  side  or  the 
smallest  possible  part  of  a  side — the  minimum  visible — or  hears 
a  single  sound  or  note,  and,  while  seeing  or  hearing,  compares 
with  it  the  side  just  seen  or  the  sound  just  heard  before.  But  in 
order  to  do  this,  it  must  apprehend  at  the  same  undivided  instant 
of  time  both  the  side  which  is  seen  and  the  side  which  is  remem 
bered,  etc.  The  doctrine  that  the  mind  can  apprehend  or  know 
but  a  single  object  at  a  single  instant  of  time,  must  be  abandoned 
as  incompatible  with  all  the  higher  functions  and  acquisitions 
of  the  soul,  as  well  as  with  the  most  obvious  facts  within  our 
experience. 

To  the  knowledge  of  relations,  the  knowledge  of  at  least  two 
related  objects  is  necessary.  To  successful  or  permanent  know- 
ledge, even  of  relations,  attention  is  requisite.  The  mind  must 
then  be  able  to  attend  to  more  than  a  single  object.  Inasmuch, 
also,  as  by  far  the  most  important  of  our  sense-perceptions  are 
concerned  with  the  union  of  percepts  either  of  the  same  or  differ- 
ent senses,  it  follows,  that  the  mind  can  attentively  perceive  more 
than  a  single  percept.  That  the  mind,  in  any  single  act  of  percep- 
tion, usually  attends  with  unequal  energy  to  each  of  the  related 
percepts,  is  a  point  which  might  be  urged  with  some  show  of  reason. 
When  we  view  two  or  more  objects  together  for  the  purpose  of 
comparing  them,  and  strain  the  mind  to  its  utmost  energy,  the 
excess  of  energy  is  directed  now  to  one  and  now  to  another. 
Both  are  attended  to,  but  not  with  the  same  intenseness.  The 
mind  regards  one  object  with  more  attention  than  the  other,  in 
order  that  it  may  receive  a  vivid  and  distinct  impression  of  it, 
and  then  compares  or  in  some  other  way  connects  it  with  that 
received  from  the  other.  When  this  is  done,  the  process  of 
comparison  or  connection  is  complete.  This  fact  has  given  occa« 
sion  to  the  unwarranted  inference,  that  the  mind  can  attend  to 
but  a  single  object  at  the  same  indivisible  instant. 


180  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  121. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

ACTIVITY   OF   THE  SOUL   IN   SENSE-PERCEPTION. 

§  121.  The  impression  is  very  common,  that  the 
soul,  in  its  sense-perception,  is  simply  receptive  of 
Jniybe  material  objects  —  that  it  passively  receives  whatever 
imprints  are  made  from  without,  exerting  no  active 
agency  of  its  own. 

By  many,  this  is  stated  as  a  positive  doctrine,  which  is  consis- 
tently carried  out  into  all  its  logical  inferences  and  applications. 
Thus  Kant  and  his  disciples,  as  well  as  many  psychologists  not 
of  his  school,  assert  that  the  soul,  in  sense-perception  —  as  indeed 
in  all  the  intuitions  of  consciousness  —  is  simply  receptive,  while 
in  the  higher  functions  of  thought  it  is  self-active. 

Psychologists  of  the  materialistic  school,  and  many  who  are 
not  materialists,  but  are  more  or  less  influenced  by  forms  of 
expression  and  habits  of  association  that  are  borrowed  from 
materialistic  theories,  not  only  assert  that  the  mind  is  passive 
in  its  sense-perceptions,  but  even  in  the  higher  activities  of 
imagination  and  thought.  Locke  often  inadvertently  expresses 
himself  in  language  and  by  illustrations  and  analogies  borrowed 
from  the  physics  of  his  time.  Coadillac  not  only  makes  all 
sensations  to  be  impressions  imprinted  upon  the  tabula  rasa,  but 
makes  all  ideas,  or  the  intellectual  copies  of  sensations,  to  be 
simply  "transformed  sensations."  With  him  agree  in  principle 
the  ideologists  of  the  French  school.  The  schools  of  Benecke 
and  Herbart  in  Germany,  as  also  of  Herbert  Spencer  and  his 
disciples  in  England  and  America,  all  formally  accept  and 
positively  teach  the  same  doctrine,  or  unconsciously  assume  it  to 
be  true  in  their  theories  and  discussions. 

The  grounds  on  which  these  theories  and  assump- 

Gronnds  on  . 

the  the-  tions  rest  are  the  following  :  1.  The  general  miscon- 


ception of  the  nature  of  the  soul,  and  the  powers 
and  laws  of  its  working,  by  which  it  is  invested  with  material 
properties,  and  interpreted  by  material  analogies.  2.  The 
unquestioned  fact,  that  the  soul,  in  sense-perception,  apprehends 


§  122.          ACTIVITY  OF  THE  SOUL  IN  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  18 

and  acts  by  means  of  a  material  organism,  and  has  to  do  solely 
with  material  objects.  3.  The  soul  is  known  to  be  entirely 
dependent  on  matter  for  the  objects  which  it  perceives.  It 
cannot  perceive  any  material  object  when  the  object  or  stimulus 
does  not  exist.  Moreover,  the  efficiency  of  the  material  organ 
or  instrument  which  it  employs,  depends  on  the  material  con- 
ditions which  are  required  for  healthful  and  vigorous  activity. 
§  122.  We  maintain  that  in  sense-perception  the 

.  .  ,  .  Evidence   that 

intellect  is  active,  and  for  the  following  reasons: 
The  soul,  in  sense-perception,  is  known  through 
consciousness  to  be  active,  and  in  a  special  sense  to  be  self- 
active.  To  perceive  by  the  senses,  is  only  a  special  form  of  the 
soul's  general  capacity  or  power  to  know.  To  know,  is  not  to 
receive  or  suffer  an  impression,  but  to  be  certain  of  a  fact-i 
whenever  this  function  is  exercised,  the  soul  is  self-active, 
whether  the  objects  known  are  material  or  spiritual. 

That  the  soul  is  active  in  sense-perception,  is  still  further 
evident  from  the  following  facts,  most  of  which  have  already 
been  noticed.  The  power  of  the  intellect  to  perceive  any  objects 
of  sense  is  developed  by  degrees  in  the  mind  of  the  infant,  and, 
after  it  is  fully  developed,  is  exercised  at  different  times  and  by 
different  persons  with  a  greater  or  less  degree  of  energy.  The 
infant  at  first  feels  many  sensations,  but  it  can  scarcely  be  said 
to  know  objects  at  all.  In  other  words,  it  only  perceives  with 
the  lowest  activity  possible  of  a  power  undeveloped  by  exercise. 
It  is  only  when  its  attention  is  aroused  and  its  power  to  know  is 
acquired  and  fixed,  that  it  is  properly  said  to  perceive.  Its  at- 
tention is  first  limited  to  the  objects  of  a  single  sense.  One  after 
another,  each  of  the  senses  is  awakened  to  action,  and,  as  each  is 
aroused,  the  mind  seems  to  bestow  for  the  time  the  whole  of  its 
energy  upon  the  world  which  a  single  sense  unfolds  before  it. 
It  studies  light,  it  studies  colors,  it  studies  forms,  it  studies 
sounds,  it  studies  touches.  Soon,  in  connection  with  the  move- 
ments of  its  body,  it  learns  to  apprehend  the  relations  of  space, 
viz.  ,  position,  distance,  and  dimensions.  It  then  gathers  its  per- 
cepts together,  locates  them  together  or  apart,  attaching  them  to 
their  appropriate  places  or  objects.  Then  it  uses  one  class  of 
percepts  in  place  of  another,  or  as  signs  of  distance,  size,  etc.,  in 
all  the  varieties  of  acquired  perception. 


182  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  123. 

As  real  and  as  great  a  difference  is  to  be  observed  in  the  per- 
ceptions of  different  men ;  also  in  those  of  the  same  men  at  dif- 
ferent times.  If  we  suppose  the  powers  of  perception  to  be  de- 
veloped in  any  number  of  persons,  we  cannot  fail  to  notice  im- 
portant differences  in  the  energy  and  effectiveness  with  which 
they  are  used.  Two  persons  look  out  upon  a  landscape,  but 
how  much  more  does  the  one  behold  than  the  other!  One 
sees  countless  objects  which  the  other  entirely  overlooks — housesr 
trees,  lawns,  lines  of  beauty,  contrasted  and  varying  colors,  artis- 
tic groupings,  none  of  which  are  observed  by  the  other.  Num- 
berless sounds  await  the  notice  of  each.  One  hears,  the  other 
fails  to  hear  the  crowing  cock,  the  sharp  report  of  the  rifle,  the 
rattling  and  rumbling  of  distant  vehicles,  the  cawing  crow,  the 
singing  of  birds.  The  same  is  true  of  the  percepts  of  taste, 
smell,  and  touch,  though  in  a  manner  and  to  a  degree  less 
striking. 

§  123.  The  methods  in  which  the  soul  exerts  its 

Different  modes          . .    • ,  .  -j-,.  m-,  ,   .  .    , 

of  this  activity,  activity  are  various.  I'irst:  1  he  soul  imparts  special 
energy  to  single  organs,  so  that  they  perform  their 
functions  with  more  than  usual  efficiency.  It  can  determine  an  unu- 
sual flow  or  excitement  of  the  nervous  power  to  the  eye,  the  ear, 
or  the  hand,  thereby  rendering  each  capable  of  more  vivid  sensa- 
tions. The  process  and  its  effect  are  both  called  the  innervation 
of  the  organs.  This  is  accomplished,  in  all  probability,  by 
means  of  the  reflex  or  efferent  nervous  organism.  Whatever 
may  be  the  physical  or  physiological  medium  by  which  the  effect 
is  produced,  its  cause  is  often  purely  psychical ;  the  soul  itself  is 
the  originating  agent. 

This  innervation  of  a  single  organ  or  pair  of  organs  is  ob- 
served in  cases  like  the  following :  The  eye  rests  listlessly  or 
wanders  vaguely  over  a  landscape  or  a  crowd  of  men.  In  a 
moment  it  is  fixed  by  some  single  object ;  perhaps  through  some 
physical  stimulus,  as  a  bright  light  or  glaring  color  ;  perhaps  by 
something  attractive  to  the  feelings  only.  The  curiosity  is 
aroused,  and  stimulates  the  organ  to  do  its  utmost.  Under  the 
innervation  of  the  agent  of  vision,  the  picture  which  had  before 
been  painted  dimly  on  the  retina,  is  suddenly  lighted  up  as 
though  a  new  force  of  sunlight  had  poured  upon  the  object  a 
fresh  illumination.  In  a  similar  way,  the  soul  can  awaken  ths 


§123.          ACTIVITY  OF  THE  SOUL  IN  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  183 

ear  to  more  distinct  hearing,  by  summoning  its  physical  capaci- 
ties to  do  their  utmost.  "  Did  you  hear  that  shriek  ?"  says  one 
man  to  another :  The  ears  of  both  are  made  attent  at  once,  and 
are  physically  excited  to  catch  even  the  feeblest  sound,  as  well 
as  mentally  to  interpret  its  meaning. 

That  the  soul  possesses  and  uses  this  power,  is  evident  still 
further  from  the  fact,  that,  in  order  to  increase  the  energy  of 
single  organs,  the  mind  is  often  forced  to  suspend  the  action  of 
the  others.  We  close  the  eyes,  that  we  may  hear  distinctly  a 
doubtful  call,  or  mark  the  faint  ticking  of  the  clock,  or  do  full 
justice  to  the  skill  and  power  with  which  a  superior  singer 
manages  delicately  shaded  sounds.  We  find  it  difficult,  and 
sometimes  impossible,  to  give  full  effect  to  two  of  the  senses  at 
the  same  time.  We  cannot  at  the  same  instant  read  the  degrees 
from  a  measuring  scale,  arid  listen  to  a  musical  air. 

Second :  The  mind  exercises  its  activity  in  its  sense-percep- 
tions, by  directing  its  attention  to  a  limited  number  of  sense- 
objects,  and  neglecting  the  remainder. 

The  mind,  as  we  have  seen,  can,  in  a  single  act  of  apprehen- 
sion, be  occupied  with  only  a  few  objects,  whether  they  are 
objects  of  sense,  or  psychical  creations.  To  do  justice  to  those 
objects,  so  as  to  bring  away  distinct  and  vivid  images  of  their 
nature  and  relations,  requires  that  they  be  exclusively  before 
the  mind.  If  they  are  exclusively  present,  other  objects  must 
be  withdrawn,  unnoticed,  or  neglected.  The  fact  is  unquestioned, 
that  the  mind  does  both  admit  and  shut  out  the  objects  of  sense 
by  its  active  efforts.  If  we  notice  and  follow  our  own  processes 
in  sense-perception,  we  shall  observe  that  we  are  constantly  em- 
ploying our  energies  in  this  twofold  way.  When,  for  example, 
we  listen  to  a  full  orchestra,  we  may  single  out  the  fife,  and 
follow  its  shrill  piping,  in  spite  of  the  crashing  masses  of  sound 
that  assail  the  ear  from  trumpet,  trombone,  and  drum ;  or  we 
trace  the  silver  threading  of  the  leading  violin,  or  we  combine 
into  a  single  and  almost  exclusive  impression  the  sounds  which 
the  striked  or  wind  instrumsnts  make  together  ;  or  we  give  the 
ear  to  a  single  part  as  rendered  by  its  appropriate  agents,  soaring 
with  the  air,  or  sustaiaed  by  the  animating  tenor,  or  sympathiz- 
ing with  the  bass,  leaving,  in  each  instance,  all  the  other  parts 
unheard.  The  power  of  the  mind  not  to  perceive  or  not  to 


184  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  123, 

notice,  is  illustrated  by  examples  like  the  following :  The  miller 
does  not  hear  the  sounds  from  his  own  mill,  while  the  visitor  can 
hear  nothing  else.  The  operative  does  not  notice,  and  therefore 
is  not  disturbed  by  the  whir  of  the  spindles  and  the  clash  of  the 
looms.  He  can  speak  and  hear  with  entire  freedom,  while  the 
bystander  can  do  neither,  from  the  distracting  and  deafening  din. 

Third;  The  activity  of  the  mind  in  sense-perception  is  still 
further  illustrated  in  the  great  variety  of  acts  and  processes 
which  we  are  compelled  to  perform,  in  order  to  create  percepts 
and  images  which  we  can  carry  away  and  retain.  These  acts 
and  processes  are  acts  of  selective  analysis  and  constructive  syn- 
thesis, by  which  the  soul  chooses  for  itself  the  objects  which  it 
will  separate  and  remember  as  distinct  images  or  things. 

When  we  are  confronted  with  an  object  wholly  strange  and 
new,  we  often  find  ourselves  making  distinct  efforts  to  study  it 
part  by  part,  adding  one  after  another,  till  we  have  combined  all 
its  elements  into  a  definite  product.  Even  when  the  eye  is  intro- 
duced to  a  new  landscape,  it  first  runs  with  rapid  glances  along  the 
horizon,  resting  here  and  there  upon  any  point  or  feature  which 
invites  a  prolonged  or  second  look ;  then  it  sweeps  hither  and 
thither,  crossing  its  path  as  often  as  need  be,  searching  out 
whatever  may  attract  its  gaze.  After  having  thus  constructed 
the  outline  of  the  picture,  it  leisurely  paints  in  the  details  one 
by  one,  till  the  whole  is  finished,  and  it  can  carry  away  the  re- 
membrance of  it  as  a  single  object ;  or  perhaps  it  divides  it  into 
separate  portions,  and  treasures  in  the  memory  cabinet  pictures 
of  selected  parts.  But  how  much  does  the  most  careful  and 
active  observer  overlook !  How  much  is  reserved  for  after-efforts ! 
A  recognition  of  the  activity  of  the  mind  in  perception  is  alto- 
gether essential  to  a  right  conception  of  the  nature  and  con- 
ditions of  acts  of  memory  and  imagination.  The  mind  can  re- 
create by  the  representative  power  only  what  it  has  first  creatsd 
by  the  power  of  perception.  The  memory  and  imagination  can 
recall  and  reshape  no  more  of  the  objects  of  sense  than  the  per- 
ceptive power  has  shaped  and  fixed  and  carried  away  for  the 
service  of  both.  The  acquisitions  of  the  memory  and  the  reach 
of  the  imagination  do  not  depend  so  much  upon  the  number 
of  objects  which  we  have  perceived,  as  upon  the  manner  in 
which  we  have  perceived  them. 


§  123.         ACTIVITY  OF  THE  SOUL  IN  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  185 

Fourth :  The  activity  of  the  mind  in  sense-perception  is  re- 
quired in  early  life  to  separate  the  mass  of  perceived  or  perceiv- 
able material  into  the  distinct  objects  which  are  apprehended 
and  named  by  men  of  average  intelligence. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  work  of  thus  uniting  different 
percepts  into  distinguishable  wholes  is  performed  to  a  great  ex- 
tent before  the  time  when  we  can  distinctly  remember.  To  the 
infant's  eye  the  whole  world  of  perceivable  matter,  so  far  as  it  is 
perceived  at  all,  is  perceived  as  a  single  whole,  or  one  undivided 
object.  The  apartment  within  which  it  tries  its  first  experiments 
of  activity  is  literally  a  universe;  the  walls,  the  ceiling,  the 
table,  the  chairs,  all  blending  together  in  a  total  impression. 
This  whole  is  divided  into  parts  by  successive  efforts.  One  mind 
does  this  with  greater  perfection  than  another.  Its  discrimina- 
tions are  more  subtle,  its  combinations  more  exact,  and  its  inter- 
pretations more  sagacious,  even  upon  such  objects  as  apples, 
oranges,  chairs,  tables,  horses,  and  dogs. 

Fifth :  The  activity  of  the  mind  is  conspicuous  in  the  diversity 
of  the  sense-perceptions  which  are  reached  by  different  men  as 
they  advance  in  life,  or  differ  in  their  employments  and  culture. 

A  single  general  example  may  illustrate  the  diversity  of  per- 
ception in  which  all  these  conditions  exert  their  influence.  Let  two 
men  together  inspect  a  complicated  machine  or  engine ;  let  the 
one  be  a  person  of  average  knowledge  and  experience,  and  the 
other  an  accomplished  engineer :  how  much  more  wiU  the  one 
perceive  in  the  engine  than  the  other!  Before  the  practiced  eye, 
each  separate  part  takes  its  appropriate  place,  being  sharply 
distinguished  from  every  other,  the  dividing  surfaces  and  con- 
necting members  being  all  discerned  at  a  glance,  and  all  these 
separate  portions  being  united  into  a  complete  and  symmetrical 
whole.  To  the  eye  of  the  uninstructed  person,  however  keen 
may  be  his  physical  vision,  there  is  neither  whole  nor  parts,  but 
a  confused  and  bewildering  impression.  The  difference  cannot 
be  accounted  for  by  any  physical  defect  or  excellence  in  the 
organs  of  vision,  but  only  by  the  previous  intellectual  training. 

These  intellectual  conditions  are  the  result  of  the  mind's  own 
energy,  and  that  they  are  most  significant  is  convincingly 
demonstrated  by  a  multitude  of  similar  cases.  The  sharp  but 
uninstructed  eye  of  the  child  or  the  savage  looks  out  listlessly 


186  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  123. 

upon  the  stars ;  the  reflecting  eye  of  the  astronomer  groups  them 
in  figures,  threads  them  upon  lines,  and  arrays  them  in  mystical 
curves.  The  mechanic  perceives  much  that  every  other  man 
overlooks,  and  the  objects  which  each  mechanic  perceives,  or,  as 
we  say,  has  an  eye  for,  depend  on  the  particular  trade  to  which 
he  has  been  trained.  It  is  true  that  in  such  cases,  some  activity  of 
phantasy  and  memory  attends  and  often  precedes  the  special 
activity  of  sense.  But  if  the  memory  and  the  phantasy  are  first 
aroused,  their  action  determines  and  decides  what  is  perceived 
by  the  senses ;  it  directs  and  holds  the  attention  to  their  appro- 
priate objects,  and  so  enables  the  mind  to  master  and  retain  them 
as  permanent  possessions. 

It  follows  from  these  truths,  by  a  necessary  inference,  that  the 
mind's  activity  in  perception,  and  its  mastery  over  a  greater  or 
smaller  number  of  objects,  must  depend  very  largely  upon  the 
interest  which  these  objects  excite.  In  other  words,  the  feelings 
and  the  character  affect  the  accuracy  and  the  reach,  and  of 
course  the  permanence  of  the  sense-perceptions. 

The  eye  that  is  sharpened  by  the  lust  of  gain,  detects  objects 
and  qualities  to  which  the  less  interested  observer  is  totally 
blind.  The  ear  that  is  quickened  by  expectation  or  terror  can 
catch  the  sound  of  deliverance  when  all  other  ears  are  deaf. 
The  hand  that  palpitates  with  hope  or  fear,  can  apprehend 
delicate  monitions  of  good  or  evil,  which  the  stranger  would  not 
notice.  The  living  soul,  as  intellect,  sensibility,  and  will,  is 
present  in  the  acts  of  every  sense,  and  largely  determines  the 
report  which  each  shall  make  of  the  material  universe.  What 
a  man  is,  is  exemplified  in  what  he  perceives, — his  tastes,  his 
desires,  and  even  his  moral  habits  and  resolves. 

The  activity  of  sense-perception,  though  an  activity 

Is  elementary,  J  . 

ami  easily  ex-  or  knowledge,  is  however  the  most  elementary  of  all 
these  activities,  and  the  one  which  is  most  easily 
performed.  In  one  aspect  it  is  the  lowest  in  the  scale  in  respect 
to  its  dignity  and  disciplinary  value.  It  is  the  least  intellectual 
of  all  the  intellectual  acts.  It  is  performed  with  great  ease  and 
with  surprising  perfection  by  the  infant.  All  the  manifold 
processes  of  combination  and  judgment  which  it  involves  are 
executed  with  the  greatest  rapidity,  at  the  very,  earliest  age,  and 
by  persons  of  the  least  cultivation  in  the  higher  discriminationi 


§  124.        ACTIVITY  OF  THE  SOUL  IN  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  187 

of  the  intellect,  and  apparently  of  the  very  lowest  capacity  for 
such  cultivation.  The  habits  and  aptitudes  which  are  the  results 
of  these  efforts  seem  to  be  more  completely  controlled  by  asso- 
ciation, to  displace  and  almost  to  defy  reflection,  more  entirely 
than  is  true  of  the  higher  activities  and  applications  of  the 
intellect.  That  some  activities  and  processes  of  the  intellect 
are  capable  of  being  more  readily  performed  than  others,  is  an 
original  fact  of  our  being.  It  can  only  be  accepted  as  a  psy- 
chological fact,  which,  to  our  knowledge  is  ultimate  and  inex- 
plicable. But  though  this  fact  cannot  be  resolved  by  any  higher 
or  more  comprehensive  psychical  or  physical  law,  it  is  readily 
explained  by  the  still  higher  relations  of  adaptation  and  design. 

SENSE-PERCEPTION:  SUMMARY  AND  REVIEW. 

$  124.  (1.)  The  processes  involved  in  sense-perception,  as  our  analysis  has  shown, 
are  by  no  means  simple.  The  product,  when  complete  in  a  perceived  material 
object,  is  in  its  constituent  elements  and  relations  more  complex  than  is  usually 
believed. 

We  will  briefly  review  and  recapitulate  the  several  steps  of  the  processes  and 
the  elements  of  the  product. 

(2.)  Sense-perception  is  an  act  of  knowledge  by  means  of  sensations  and  the 
sense-organs.  As  the  term  indicates,  the  act  implies  two  elements,  which  are 
distinguished  as  sensation  and  perception;  more  exactly  as  sensation -proper  and 
perception-proper.  These  are  distinguished  in  thought,  but  not  separable  in 
fact.  The  act  of  consciousness  by  which  we  know  the  process,  separates  these 
elements  by  an  analysis  of  thought,  but  connects  them  by  a  synthesis  of  time  re- 
lations, as  constituting  a  single  and  instantaneous  psychical  state.  They 
are  distinguished  in  the  relation  of  dependence,  but  are  united  as  instantaneous 
in  time. 

(3.)  Sensation,  or  the  sensation  element,  is  known  still  further :  First,  physiolo- 
gically, as  dependent  on  the  excitement  of  the  sensorium,  in  whole  or  in  part, 
by  some  physical  excitant  or  object.  The  sensorium  is  a  collective  term  for  the 
nervous  organism  and  the  sense-organs  conjoined.  This  organism,  animated 
by  the  sentient  soul,  acts  as  the  agent  or  instrument  of  the  several  sensations. 
How  it  is  fitted  thus  to  act,  we  do  not  know.  What  there  is  in  its  nature  which 
renders  it  capable  of  responding,  as  it  does,  to  the  impressions  or  excitements 
which  it  suffers,  We  cannot  explain.  We  know  that  each  class  or  portion  of  tho 
sentient  nerves  is  capable  of  a  special  sensation,  and  so  far  is  idiopathic.  In 
order  to  produce  it,  the  excitement  or  impression  must  usually  be  applied  to  the 
nerve-endings,  in  the  sense-organs.  A  class  of  exceptions  to  this  rule  is  found 
in  the  effect  upon  the  nervous  filaments,  of  electric  and  chemioal  action,  of  pres- 
sure, of  certain  morbid  and  abnormal  bodily  conditions,  which  occasion  what  are 
called  the  subjective  sensations  of  light  and  sound,  and  perhaps  of  taste. 

(4.)  Second,  psychologically  considered,  sensation  is  a  more  or  less  positively 
fleasant  or  painful  experience  of  the  soul,  as  consciously  Animating  and  acting 


188  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT,  §124. 

with  an  extended  sensorium.  The  sensations  are  in  this  respect  sharply  distin- 
guished by  the  soul  itself  from  the  desires  which  attend  them  as  well  as  from  th« 
purely  spiritual  emotions.  When  the  soul  is  said  to  be  conscious  of  its  sensations, 
consciousness  can  not  be  used  in  the  technical  sense  of  a  direct  cognizance  of 
purely  spiritual  acts  or  states,  but  as  a  direct  or  intuitive  cognizance  of  this  pecu- 
liar experience.  It  follows  that  the  several  sensations,  inasmuch  as  they  are  ex- 
perienced by  the  soul  as  connected  with  the  extended  sensorium,  must  be  in- 
definitely but  really  separated  from  each  other  in  distance  and  place, 

(5.)  Perception,  as  an  act  of  the  mind,  is  subjective  and  objective  ;  as  subjective, 
it  is  distinguished  by  several  steps  or  processes.  As  objective,  it  apprehends  some 
being.  The  result  is  a  product,  or  the  object  as  known. 

Subjectively  viewed,  sense-perception  is  distinguished  as  original  and  acquiredt 
or  simple  and  complex;  also  as  direct  and  indirect.  In  original  or  simple  percep- 
tion, the  mind  knows  the  single  percepts  which  are  appropriate  to  single  organs 
of  sense.  In  acquired  or  complex  perception,  it  connects  these  with  one  another 
under  a  variety  of  relations.  In  direct  perception,  the  relations  used  are  those  of 
extension  and  diversity;  in  indirect,  those  of  likeness,  causation,  and  design  are 
also  employed. 

Objectively  viewed,  perception  always  knows  a  material  non-ego.  But  the  ob~ 
jects  of  simple  and  complex  perception  are  unlike. 

(6.)  In  simple  or  original  perception,  the  object  is  a  simple  percept — i,  e.,  an  ex- 
tended non-ego.  But  the  term  non-ego  is  equivocal,  being  capable  of  three  dis- 
tinct meanings,  corresponding  to  the  three  distinguishable  egos  with  which  they 
-are  contrasted.  These  are  the  following:  (1.)  The  perceiving  agent  as  a  pure 
spirit;  (2.)  the  percipient  agent  as  a  spirit  animating  an  extended  sensorium; 
(3.)  the  individual  as  spirit,  sensorium,  and  body.  The  three  non-egos  contrasted 
with  these  are :  (1.)  The  sensorium  in  excited  action,  distinguished  by  the  soul 
from  itself  as  a  pure  spirit ;  (2.)  the  body  perceived  as  other  than  the  sentient 
soul — i.  e.,  the  soul  as  animating  the  sensorium ',  and  (3.)  the  surrounding  universe 
as  distinguished  from  the  soul,  sensorium,  and  body — i.  e.,  from  the  man  as  soul 
and  body  united. 

(7.)  In  original  perception,  the  object  directly  apprehended  is  the  sensorium  as 
excited  to  some  definite  action.  This  is  distinguished  from  the  soul  as  percipient, 
by  the  soul's  own  act  of  discrimination.  In  other  words,  the  ego  and  non-ego 
contrasted  are  the  first  named  above.  This  non-ego  is  the  percept  appropriate  to 
each  of  the  sense  organs. 

Some  contend  that  there  are  but  two  organs  and  two  forms  of  direct  perception 
— those  of  touch  and  sight;  the  senses  of  taste,  smell,  and  hearing,  giving  sensa- 
tions only. 

(8.)  Indirect  or  acquired  perception  first  combines  single  percepts  into  material 
wholes  or  objects,  by  referring  them  to  the  same  portion  of  space.  The  first  expe- 
riment is  made  with  the  body  itself,  the  perception  of  which  the  soul  completes, 
knowing  it  within  and  without.  This  gives  the  non-ego  in  the  second  sense. 
Other  percepts  it  proceeds  to  combine  and  construct  into  other  bodies,  by  pro- 
cesses of  comparison,  measurement,  and  induction,  after  the  analogon  of  the  body 
which  the  soul  inhabits.  These  are  distinguished  from  the  body  itself,  giving 
the  non-ego  in  the  third  sense,  the  distances,  forms,  sizes,  etc.,  being  assigned 
by  the  various  processes  of  judgment,  which  are  usually  called  acts  of  acquirer! 
perception. 


§  125.  THEORIES  OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION.  189 

(9.)  Later  still,  the  intellect  knows  the  percepts  thus  united  as  substance  and 
attribute,  when  it  connects  the  objects  with  the  sensations  which  they  excite  undec 
the  relation  of  causality,  or  compares  one  object  with  another  under  the  relations 
of  form  and  dimension.  To  do  the  one,  tho  material  object  must  be  contrasted 
with  the  sentient  saul,  by  an  act  of  reflexive  comparison,  both  being  projected  into 
the  mind's  field  of  view.  To  do  the  other,  motion,  measurement,  and  analysis 
are  required  to  separate  length,  breadth,  size,  and  form,  from  the  things  to  which 
they  pertain.  Recognition,  generalization,  and  other  acts  of  the  higher  intelli- 
gence greatly  stimulate  and  aid  this  activity,  but  are  not  essential  to  it.  Many, 
not  to  say  all,  of  these  acts  of  acquired  or  indirect  perception  are  acts  of  natural 
and  unconscious  induction,  which,  like  other  such  acts,  must  assume  in  the  objects 
known  adaptation  to  the  mind  that  knows  them ;  in  other  words  must  assume  de- 
sign and  order  in  the  universe. 

When  the  material  object  is  known  in  these  elements  and  relations  as  a  pro- 
duct familiar  to  the  mind,  the  process  of  sense-perception  is  complete. 

(10.)  When,  moreover,  consciousness  is  so  matured  as  to  distinguish  the  soul's 
spiritual  acts  and  emotions  from  its  sensations  and  their  objects,  then  the  non-ego 
is  distinguished  from  the  ego  in  the  first  sense  required,  and  all  the  relations  of 
matter  to  the  spirit,  which  are  objects  of  common  observation,  are  attained  and 
made  familiar  to  the  intellect. 

(11.)  In  the  processes  of  sense-perception  the  state  of  the  intellect  is  active,  and 
active  only.  It  is  a  form  of  that  knowledge,  by  which  beings  and  relations  are 
cognized  as  real.  This  activity  is  intimately  allied  to  the  higher  processes  of 
which  it  is  the  essential  condition,  and  like  them  is  directed  by  the  emotions  and 
the  will,  which  together  with  the  intellect  make  up  the  endowments  of  the  con- 
scious soul. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THEORIES   OF  SENSE-PERCEPTION. 

£  J25.  All  philosophers  have  undertaken  to  give  some  theory  or  Interest  of  the 
explanation  of  the  perceptions  of  sense.  These  perceptions  are 
among  the  most  striking  and  interesting  of  all  phenomena,  and 
would  naturally  attract  the  attention  of  all  inquisitive  minds.  They  vary  in 
uniformity  with  the  changing  condition  of  the  bodily  organs,  and  of  the  objects 
and  media  with  which  these  organs  are  concerned.  For  this  reason,  men  of  phil- 
osophic tastes  would  be  prompted  to  devise  some  theory  to  explain  how  and  why 
these  perceptions  so  often  change. 

It  is  not  strange  that  these  explanations  have  usually  been  derived  from  the 
generally  received  opinions  or  philosophical  theories  concerning  the  forces  and 
laws  of  nature,  and  the  powers  and  laws  of  the  human  soul.  As  the  sciences  of 
nature  and  of  the  soul  have  been  continually  changing,  one  theory  of  sense-per- 
ception has  given  place  to  another. 

On  the  other  hand,  erroneous  theories  of  sense-perception  have,  by  a  reflex  in- 
fluence, affected  to  a  very  large  extent  the  philosophy  of  the  soul.  The  condi> 
tions  and  laws  of  sense-perception  would  readily  be  taken  as  the  types  of  all  tho 


190  THE    HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  126. 

intellectual  processes.  Whatever  theory  was  adopted  in  respect  to  the  nature  of 
sight  and  hearing,  would  be  extended  to  memory  and  the  imagination.  It  is  not 
surprising,  therefore,  that  these  theories  have  exerted  so  powerful  an  influence 
upon  psychology  and  speculative  philosophy. 

Theories  of  sense-perception  are  especially  liable  to  be  erroneous,  from  the  cir- 
cumstance that  they  involve  so  many  elements.  The  processes  are  themselves 
most  complicated,  involving,  as  they  do,  corporeal  and  psychical  agencies.  In 
order  fully  to  understand  the  processes  of  sense-perception,  we  must  know  their 
conditions  or  media;  this  involves  a  correct,  if  not  a  complete,  knowledge  of  such 
agents  as  light  and  sound.  A  grossly  erroneous  theory  of  either  might  vitiate 
our  theory  of  the  psychological  processes  of  sight  and  hearing.  The  scientific 
knowledge  of  these  agents  and  their  laws  includes  assumptions  both  mathe- 
matical and  metaphysical,  which  may  be  correct  and  complete,  or  erroneous  and  de- 
fective. 

The. instruments  of  sense-perception  are  the  bodily  organs;  and  to  understand 
these  organs  we  must  not  only  have  a  correct  theory  of  the  living  organism,  but 
also  of  its  relations  to  the  rational  soul.  The  psychical  element  in  perception  is 
also  complex.  The  consideration  of  perception  as  a  special  act  or  kind  of  know- 
ledge, requires  some  just  views  of  knowledge  in  general.  A  serious  error  in  re- 
spect to  this  fundamental  point  would,  by  a  logical  necessity,  involve  mistake  or 
defect  in  respect  to  knowledge  by  perception.  The  element  of  feeling  is  also  pre- 
sent in  sense-perception  in  what  is  called  bodily  sensibility,  the  correct  theory  of 
which  involves  just  views  of  the  nature  of  feeling  in  general,  and  of  the  relation 
of  feeling  to  knowledge.  Of  the  various  theories  of  sense-perception  which  are 
so  prominent  in  the  history  of  philosophy,  the  errors  and  defects  are  to  be  traced 
to  some  false  assumption  or  oversight  in  physics,  physiology,  or  metaphysics,  or 
in  all  these  sciences  combined. 

Theories  of  sense-perception  are,  to  a  great  extent,  theories  of  vision.  This 
is  not  surprising.  The  phenomena  of  vision  are  the  most  prominent  in  our  expe- 
rience, and  the  most  attractive  to  our  attention.  The  organs  of  vision  are  more 
complicated  than  those  of  any  other  sense,  and  at  the  same  time  more  easily 
separated  into  their  component  parts.  As  might  be  expected,  the  theories  of 
sense-perception  which  are  recorded  in  the  history  of  philosophy,  are,  for  the 
most  part,  theories  of  vision,  and  the  illustrations  and  examples  of  the  power  of 
sense-perception,  its  actings  and  its  laws,  are  almost  universally  drawn  from  the 
power  of  seeing  with  the  eye. 

g  126.  We  begin  with  the  theories  of  the  earlier  Greek  philoso- 
G^k  ^hUoso-  Pners<  *n  these  there  is  very  little  to  interest  or  instruct  us,  ex 
phers.  cept  as  they  serve  to  illustrate  the  causes  of  error,  and  to  show  us 

the  beginnings  and  germs  of  almost  every  one  of  the  false  theories 
which  deform  and  mislead  modern  speculation.  They  are  all  alike,  in  not  sharply 
distinguishing  the  soul  from  the  body,  and  scarcely  from  inorganic  matter,  in  re- 
spect either  of  essence  or  functions.  The  first  effort  of  philosophy  was  to  resolve 
all  agents  and  all  phenomena — beginning  with  those  most  obviously  material  and 
mechanical,  and  terminating  with  the  most  spiritual  and  free — into  some  single 
element,  as  original  and  all-pervading. 

Empedoclea  of  Agrigentum  introduced  the  distinction  between  sensuous  and 
divine  knowledge — teaching  that  the  impressions  of  sense  must  be  corrected  by 
the  notions  of  reason.  It  was  an  axiom  with  him  in  explaining  sensuous  know* 


§  126.  THEORIES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTION.  191 

ledge,  that  like  can  only  be  known  by  its  like, — this  assumption  pervades  the 
great  majority  of  the  theories  of  perception  down  to  the  present  moment ;  and, 
as  we  have  seen,  it  is  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  the  mind  can  rid  itself  of 
its  influence.  (Cf.  Hamilton,  Works  of  Reid,  p.  300,  note.)  In  conformity  with 
this  view,  he  seeks  to  show  that  sense-perception  can  only  be  explained  by  our 
knowledge  of  the  composition  of  the  body  perceived,  and  of  the  forces  which  act 
upon  it.  The  objects  of  sense  send  off  certain  effluxes,  anoppoat,  from  their  sur- 
face, which  pass  into  the  human  body  through  pores  [provided  in  the  several 
organs-]. 

Democrilus  was  the  first  avowed  materialist;  resolving  all  the  different  kinds  of 
being,  with  their  phenomena,  into  combinations  of  atoms,  differing  in  size  and 
shape.  He  taught  that  the  soul  differs  from  the  body,  by  being  composed  of  finer 
particles.  All  sense-perceptions  are  occasioned  by  contact.  In  modern  phrase, 
he  resolved  all  the  senses  into  the  sense  of  touch.  That  which  is  brought  into  con- 
tact with  the  soul  is  not,  however,  the  material  object;  but  its  etSa>A.oj>,  or  image, 
being  detached  from  its  surface,  reaches  the  soul  by  passing  through  the  pores 
of  an  organ  of  sense.  The  etSu>A.oi/  and  the  ajj-oppoTj  were  nearly  the  same,  unless 
the  an-opporj  was  used  to  emphasize  the  material  element,  and  the  eZSwAox  that 
which  is  subjective  and  spiritual.  The  nature  and  signification  of  either  do  not 
seem  to  have  been  held  with  greater  intelligence  and  precision  in  earlier  times 
than  the  corresponding  terms  [as  image,  representation,  species]  and  conceptions 
are  employed  and  understood  in  modern  philosophy.  At  one  time  they  were 
used  in  a  signification  simply  and  grossly  material ;  at  another,  as  the  product 
of  the  combined  activity  of  the  spiritual  and  material.  (Cf.  Hitter,  vol.  i.  B.  vi. 
c.  ii.,  note.) 

From  Democritus,  Epicurus  borrowed  the  notion  of  effluxes,  simulacra  rerum, 
which  he  conceived  in  the  grossest  form — viz.,  that  they  "  are  like  pellicles  flying 
off  from  objects ;  and  that  these  material  likenesses,  diffusing  themselves  every- 
where "  in  the  air,  are  propagated  to  the  perceptive  organs.  In  the  words  of 
Lucretius  :  "  Quse,  quasi  membranae,  summo  de  corpore  rerum  Dereptse  volitant  ultra 
citroque  per  auras." 

The  philosophers  of  the  Socratic  school  [Plato  and  Aristotle]  recognized  the 
doctrines  of  their  predecessors  to  some  extent,  either  to  expand  or  refute  them. 
They  also  made  important  additions  to  the  philosophy  of  the  previous  times  in 
respect  to  the  theory  of  sense-perception.  The  doctrines  of  Aristotle  and  Plato, 
and  even  the  terms  which  they  employed,  can  be  traced  among  philosophers  of 
every  age  since  their  time;  and  they  still  reappear  and  exert  their  influence 
among  the  most  recent  schools,  Aristotle  especially  gavo  the  law  to  the  school- 
men, from  whose  teachings  the  modern  theories  have  retained  many  traditions. 
Plato  is  still  appealed  to  and  quoted  by  his  admirers  for  his  eloquent  and  just 
psychological  discriminations,  even  in  respect  to  the  theory  of  sense-perception, 

Plato  taught  very  distinctly  and  emphatically,  especially  in  his  Theatetus,  that 
sensation  [proper]  is  an  effect  jointly  produced  by  the  force,  motion,  or  action 
(<£opa)  of  the  material  object  and  the  sentient  agent,  and  that  it  varies,  of  course, 
with  this  joint  activity;  that  the  sensations  of  no  two  sentient  beings  need  ne- 
cessarily be  the  same,  under  the  same  material  conditions  at  the  same  time ;  and 
that  the  sensations  of  the  same  being,  from  the  same  object  at  different  times, 
need  not  be  the  same,  but  may  vary  very  greatly.  Sense-knowledge,  alo-flijo-is, 
is  therefore  untrustworthy,  illusive,  and,  it  may  be,  deceptive.  With  this  he  con- 


192  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  126 


trasts  the  higher  kind  of  knowledge,  17  cTrio-n^,  viz.,  that  which  is  rational  and 
intellectual  —  the  knowledge  of  ideas,  or  of  objects  in  their  ideas.  This  know- 
ledge, in  its  subjective  character,  is  certain  and  satisfactory;  in  its  objects  it  is 
permanent  and  fixed. 

We  find  in  Aristotle  also  the  beginnings  of  the  attempt  to  con- 
Aristotle.  sider  apart  and  to  distinguish  the  intellectual  act  of  perceiving 

on  the  one  hand,  and  the  physical  conditions  or  media  by  which 
objects  are  actually  perceived. 

In  respect  to  vision,  Aristotle  made  a  great  advance  upon  his  predecessors,  in 
teaching  that  visible  objects  do  not  act  directly  upon  the  eye  of  the  percipient^ 
but  through  a  transparent  agent  or  medium.  He  also  taught  a  doctrine  of  the 
refraction  of  light.  Of  this  refraction  the  transparent  medium  spoken  of  is  sus- 
ceptible when  it  appears  as  water  and  air.  In  respect  to  the  construction  of  the 
eye,  he  made  little  advance  upon  his  predecessors,  and  knew  little  or  nothing  of 
the  discoveries  made  by  modern  anatomy  and  physiology.  The  other  senses 
require  a  medium  as  truly  as  does  vision.  The  medium  is  in  every  case  set  in 
motion  or'brought  into  action  by  the  perceived  object,  and  is  thus  made  capable 
of  acting  upon  the  appropriate  sense.  In  respect  to  the  construction  and  offices 
of  the  remaining  organs  of  sense,  Aristotle  taught  little  that  is  worth  ,  eciting. 
All  perceivable  objects  are  extended,  but  their  essence,  as  perceivable,  does  not 
consist  in  their  being  extended,  but  in  a  certain  relation  or  proportion  which  they 
bear  to  the  percipient. 

In  respect  to  the  intellectual  element  in  sense-perception,  the  element  which 
we  have  called  the  discernment  of  relations,  Aristotle  is  not  clear  and  explicit. 
Now,  he  asserts  that  in  perception,  neither  truth  nor  error  are  possible,  but  that 
these  can  only  pertain  to  the  higher  powers  of  the  soul.  Again,  he  calls  the 
power  a  judging  faculty.  The  phenomena  and  products  of  sense-perception,  he 
shows  most  clearly,  have  an  element  which  does  not  pertain  to  the  purely  and 
properly  intellectual  powers  ;  but  he  does  not  explain  the  higher  element  which 
both  have  in  common.  In  this  he  gave  the  example  for  the  confusion  and  defect 
of  clearness  which  have  prevailed  from  his  day  to  the  present. 

He  held  however  that  there  is  a  common  percipient  or  sensory,  by  which  the 
several  sensations  are  measured,  judged,  and  united  together.  Each  separate 
sense  apprehends  its  own  object,  as  the  eye  color,  and  the  ear  sound  ;  and  each 
apprehends  or  discerns  this  object  correctly.  That  which  is  common  to  all  objects 
are  these  five  :  motion,  rest,  number,  size,  and  form.  The  seat  of  this  common 
sensory  or  common  percipient,  is  the  heart.  This  power  combines  and  separates 
the  percepts  appropriate  to  the  several  senses,  and  prepares  them,  so  to  speak, 
for  the  phantasy  and  the  memory,  both  of  which  are  activities  of  the  common 
percipient. 

The  doctrine  that  objects  are  not  themselves  perceived,  but  their  species  or 
perceptible  forms,  was  sanctioned  by  Aristotle.  As  the  wax  receives  only  the  im- 
pression or  image  from  the  device  on  a  seal-ring,  and  not  its  matter,  it  making 
no  difference  whether  the  ring  is  gold  or  iron,  such  is  perception  by  each  of  the 
senses.  What  is  received,  is  not  the  matter  of  the  object  perceived,  but  that 
which  it  effects  in  conjunction  with  or  in  relation  to  the  percipient.  This  is  its 
form  —  TO  elSos,  species.  What  was  intended  by  this  form,  was  variously  inter- 
preted by  the  Greek  commentators,  Simplicius  and  Themistius  contending  that 
the  percipient  is  the  bodily  organ,  which  received  a  corporeal  impression;  and 


§  128.  THEOEIES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTION.  193 

Alexander  Aphrodisiensis  and  John  Philiponus  that  it  was  a  mental  power, 
which,  by  perceiving,  gained  a  mental  impression  or  form.  The  last  were  doubt- 
less in  the  right.  (Cf.  Hamilton's  very  valuable  Notes,  Works  of  Reid,  pp.  827, 
881 ;  Metaphysics,  Lee.  xxi.  vol.  ii.  pp.  36,  37,  38 ;  Am.  ed.,  pp.  292,  293.) 

The  distinction  between  matter  and  form,  or  species,  was  transmitted  through 
the  successors  of  Aristotle  to  the  schools  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  became  an 
hereditary  text  for  controversies  and  discussions,  not  only  in  respect  to  the  na- 
ture and  validity  of  the  sense-perceptions,  but  of  the  objects  and  processes  of  our 
higher  knowledge.  These  controversies  have  not  yet  terminated,  nor  have  the 
terms  over  which  they  were  fought  been  wholly  laid  aside. 

%  127.  The  most  of  the  Schoolmen  retained  in  substance  the  dis- 
tinctions and  the  doctrines  of  Aristotle,  making  such  advances 
upon  them  as  were  to  be  expected  from  active  disputants  and  well      of  species, 
trained  dialecticians,  who  employed  their  energies  almost  exclu- 
sively in  defining  more  precisely  what  they  supposed  their  great  master  intended, 
or  in  devising  new  inferences  from  the  materials  and  data  which  he  furnished. 
The  schoolmen  were  not  exclusively  the  followers  of  Aristotle.     They  were  in- 
fluenced more  or  less  by  the  doctrines  and  the  terminology  of  Plato. 

The  doctrine  of  the  necessity  and  agency  of  species  in  sense-perception  was 
prominent  in  their  theories,  and  their  views  may  be  summed  up  in  the  following 
propositions  :  Objects  are  not  and  cannot  be  directly  and  immediately  perceived, 
but  only  their  species.  The  reasons  given  were  the  following  :  The  object  often 
is  plainly  not  in  contact  with  the  sentient  organ.  It  is  also  in  its  nature  unlike 
the  sensitive  soul,  and  therefore  cannot  affect  it.  Every  thing  known  must  be  in 
the  knowing  agent;  but  it  is  impossible  that  this  should  be  true  of  the  object; 
it  can  only  be  true  of  its  species.  Experience,  also,  proves  that  the  image  or 
species  only  is  perceived.  When  a  stick  is  thrust  into  the  water,  it  is  seen  to  be 
bent  or  broken.  A  change  in  the  medium  changes  the  object  perceived.  Our 
perceptions  of  the  same  object  also  vary  at  different  times. 

But  the  species  is  not  a  material  entity  or  efflux.  At  least,  it  was  not  so  regarded 
by  the  more  intelligent  of  the  schoolmen.  It  was  scarcely  possible,  however, 
that  it  should  not  be  treated  as  a  material  entity,  and  so  have  prepared  the  way 
for  the  grosser  doctrine  of  an  intermediate  representative  image.  The  species 
is  not  perceived,  but  only  the  object,  through  or  by  means  of  the  species.  And 
yet  the  species  so  far  forth  represents  the  object,  that  when  it  acts  upon  the 
organ  of  sense,  it  moves  or  excites  the  percipient  to  discern,  by  its  means,  the 
object  itself.  Some  of  the  schoolmen  taught  that  these  species  have  some  spatial 
relations — that  they  exist  in  every  part  of  space,  bridging  over,  by  a  continuous 
series  the  interval  between,  or  binding  together,  the  object  and  the  sentient. 

A  few  among  the  schoolmen  rejected  the  doctrine  of  sensible  and  of  intelligi- 
ble species.  Among  the  most  conspicuous  was  "William  of  Occam,  who  washed, 
by  the  boldness  with  which  he  urged  the  doctrines  of  the  Nominalists,  to  reject 
also  the  doctrine  of  sensible  species. 

$  128.  Descartes,  made  a  permanent  inroad  upon  the  philosophy 
of  the   scholastics,  and   introduced   the   modern    science  of  psy-         Descartes 

chology.     He  prepared  the  way  for  the  distinctions  and   discus-    Malebranche, 

and  Arnauld. 

sions  in  respect  to  sense-perception  which  have  played  so  im- 
portant a  part  in  modern  speculation.  The  doctrines  of  Descartes 
which  we  need  to  notice  are  the  following : 

9 


194  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  128. 

1.  Descartes  drew  a  sharply-defined  line  between  spirit  and  matter  in  respect 
to  both  essence  and  phenomena,  and  of  course  distinguished  clearly  between  the 
soul  and  the  body. 

2.  All  the  affections  of  the  body,  being  phenomena  of  matter  (of  which  the 
essence  is  extension),  must  be  resolved  into  positions  and  motions  of  its  parts 
in  space.     Hence  all  those  changes  in  the  organs  of  sense  by  which  we  perceive 
must  be  changes  in  the  relative  positions  of  their  constituent  parts. 

3.  The  medium  by  which  they  are  conveyed  to  the  brain  was  held  to  be  the 
animal  spirits.     These  serve  as  the  instrument  of  sensation,  by  producing  in  the 
brain  [conveying]  changes  corresponding  to  those  occasioned  in  the  organs  of 
sense  by  the  action  of  the  object  perceived. 

But  the  soul  does  not,  by  a  second  or  internal  sense-perception,  apprehend  the 
last  of  these  series  of  mechanical  changes  wrought  in  the  brain,  as  though  the 
soul  were  endowed  with  another  interior  apparatus  of  sense.  How  it  becomes 
aware  of  these  changes  in  the  brain  is  not  explained  by  Descartes;  nor  how, 
when  these  changes  are  made  known  to  it,  these  serve  as  indications  or  signs  of 
qualities  in  material  objects.  Descartes  never  asserted,  as  did  some  of  his  dis- 
ciples, that  these  changes  can  act  as  representative  ideas— that  in  vision,  the 
image  on  the  retina,  or  its  reflex  on  the  brain,  appears  as  a  copy  or  reflected  pic- 
ture, which  is  compared  with  the  object  itself.  On  the  other  hand,  he  held  to 
the  doctrine  of  a  representative  idea,  in  the  sense  that,  on  occasion  of  the  ap- 
prehension of  these  changes,  the  mind  has  sense-perception  of  objects.  As  the 
schoolmen  held  that  by  or  through  the  several  species,  the  soul  perceives  objects, 
so  he  held  that  through  or  on  occasion  of  these  mechanical  changes,  excited  and 
propagated  through  the  corporeal  machine,  the  soul  apprehends  the  objects  of 
which  these  are  the  indications  or  signs. 

We  see  one  object  with  two  eyes,  just  as  we  touch  one  object  with  two  sticks;  the 
similar  apprehended  motions  in  the  brain,  (corresponding  to  the  double  muscu- 
lar sensations  with  which  we  hold  the  two  sticks),  make  the  two  sticks  feel  one 
object.  But  it  is  not  explained  how  the  soul  is  capable  of  knowing  the  last 
movements  of  the  machine,  or  how  it  interprets  the  index  in  the  brain.  It  is  true, 
Descartes  supposed  the  seat  of  the  soul  to  be  a  small  gland  in  the  midst  of  a 
small  cavity  at  the  centre  of  the  brain.  To  the  plexus  of  tubes  and  interstices 
which  constitute  the  walls  of  this  cavity,  the  animal  spirits  bring  the  last  changes 
which  correspond  to  each  sense-perception  of  material  objects,  and  by  means  of 
the  changes  effected  in  these  walls  they  transmit  the  orders  of  the  soul. 

4.  All  sensations  are  purely  spiritual  affections,  being,  in  his  language,  "  modes 
of  thinking/'  or   of  thought,  which,  in  its  nature,  has  no  relation  whatever  to 
extension.     The  sensation  of  pain  which  we  refer  to  the  foot,  is   simply  in  the 
mind.    The  sensation  of  color  which  we  refer  to  an  external  object,  is  in  the  mind 
only ;  it  is  neither  in  the  eye  nor  in  the  picture  to  which  we  ascribe  it. 

5.  The  soul,  in  its   sensations,  is  purely  and   simply  passive ;  even   in   its  in- 
clinations and  desires,  which  are  functions  of  the  will,  it  is  passive. 

6.  The  diversity  in  the  qualities  of  the  sensations  is  owing  to  the   diverse  mo- 
tions of  the  bodies  which  occasion  them. 

7.  Material  objects  are  known  as  external  to  the  soul  by  the  following  process : 
The  soul  finds  itself  affected  with  certain  sensations,  or  modes  of  thought.     They 
lire  known  not  to  be  caused  by  the   soul's  own   agency.     Under  the  axiom  that 


§  129.  THEORIES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTION.  195 

every  phenomenon  must  be  referred  to  a  cause,  the  mind  believes  in  the  existence 
of  material  objects  as  the  external  causes  of  its  own  sensations. 

8.  We  confide  in  the  indications  of  the  sensas,  because  we  believe  that  God  ia 
too  good  a  being  to  allow  us  to  be  deceived,  or  to  bring  objects  before  our  senses 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  deception  possible.  That  God  is  good,  we  know  with 
innate  certainty.  Hence  we  confide  in.  the  truth  that  the  ideas  of  sense  cor- 
respond to  the  reality  of  things. 

Malebranche  developed  a  complete  theory  of  sense-perception  with  far 
greater  distinctness  and  detail  than  any  of  his  predecessors,  and  did  more  to 
give  direction  and  form  to  the  modern  theories  than  even  Locke  himself.  The 
distinctions  which  he  introduced  are  the  following  : 

1.  He  distinguished,  in  sense-perception,  the  element  of  sensation  from  the 
element  of  judgment.     Of  the  four  diiferent  elements  (which  he  says   occur  in 
almost  every  sensation,  and  are  confounded  by  most  persons,  but  which  it  is  most 
important  to  distinguish)  the  third  and  fourth  are  the  following :  the  sensation, 
or  subjective  state  of  the  soul,  as  of  warmth ;  and  the  judgment  which  the  soul 
makes  that  this  warmth  is  in  the  hand  or   in   the   fire.     "  This  judgment   is 
natural,  or  rather,  it  is  only  a  compound  or  complex  sensation  " — "  ou  pliLtoi  ce 
n'est  qu'une  sensation  composee."     This  natural  judgment  is  usually  followed  by 
another  (i.  e.  an  acquired)  judgment  which  the  soul,  through  the  force  of  habit, 
makes  with  the  utmost  rapidity. 

2.  Malebranche  accepts  the  doctrine,  that  it  is  only  through  ideas  that  we  can 
apprehend  material  objects,  and  thereby  denies  that  we  can  know  such  objects  as 
they  are.     He  gives  various  reasons  to  show  that  these  intermediate  ideas  are  ne- 
cessary.   They  are  mostly  drawn  from  the  phenomena  of  vision.    While  he  rejects 
the  doctrine  of  species  and  effluxes,  and  every  form  of  material  representation,  he 
as  earnestly  supports  the  doctrine  of  immaterial  representatives,  and  holds  that 
these  are  changing,  uncertain,  deceitful,  and  confused,  when  contrasted  with  the 
pure  ideas   which  are  attained  in  God.    His  favorite  and  peculiar  doctrine  was 
that  "  the  soul  sees  all  things  in  God." 

Antony  Arnauld  maintained  the  following  positions  against  Malebranche: 

1.  It  is  a  false  assumption  that  the  soul  cannot  perceive  except  by  means  of  re- 
presentative ideas.    What  the  soul  perceives,  is  not  the  idea  as  distinguished  from, 
and  representative  of,  the  material  object,  but  it  is  the  object  itself.     The  idea  is 
nothing  else  than  the  perception  itself.     To  say  that  the  soul  has  an  idea,  is  the 
same  as  to  say  that  the  soul  has  a  perception. 

2.  The  soul,  to  perceive  a  material  object,  does  not  need  to  come  into  contact 
with  the  object  perceived. 

3.  The  soul  is  not  passive  in  perception,  but  active.     It  is  endowed  directly  by 
the  Creator  with  the  power  to  perceive. 

4.  We  must  be  able  to  perceive  material  objects  directly.    Otherwise,  we  should 
not  know  that  the  representative  ideas  represent  them. 

$  129.  The  speculations  of  Locke  have  exerted  a  powerful  influ- 
ence upon  the  course  of  modern  philosophy,  and  incidentally  upon    J°^n  Locke, 
the  theories  of  sense-perception. 

His  opinions,  in  respect  to  sense-perception,  may  be  divided  as  follows : 

1.  Of  the  media   or  physical  conditions  of  sense- perception  he  teaches  little 
that  is  positive,  and  nothing  that  was  new. 

2.  Of  the  faculty,  he  says  only  that  it  is  a  distinct  source  of  knowledge,  and 


196  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  129. 

ftat  from  this  we  derive  all  that  we  know  of  material  qualities — i.  e,,  of  the  sepa- 
rable elements  given  by  each  of  the  senses. 

3.  The  objects  apprehended  by  the  faculty  of  sense  are  the  qualities  of  matter. 
Of  these  there  are  two  classes  :  the  primary  and  the  secondary.    The  primary  are 
solidity,  extension,  figure,  motion,  rest,  and  number.     The  secondary  are  the  so- 
called  sensible  qualities,  as  color,  taste,  smell,  etc.     The  last  are  the  capacities  in 
material  objects  to  produce  certain  impressions  or  affections  of  the  soul  by  varia- 
tions in  the  size,  figure,  position,  and  motions  of  the  primary  qualities. 

These  two  classes  of  qualities  make  up  all  that  we  know  of  material 
objects,  after  we  have  added  to  them  the  "obscure  idea"  of  substance,  as  that  in 
which  they  inhere. 

4.  What  knowledge  is,  or  what  it  is  for  the  mind  to  know,  Locke  teaches  by  the 
following  definition : 

"  The  mind  knows  not  things  immediately,  but  only  by  the  intervention  of  the 
ideas  it  has  of  them.  Our  knowledge,  therefore,  is  real  only  so  far  as  there  is  » 
conformity  between  our  ideas  and  the  reality  of  things"  (Essay,  B.  iv.  c.  iv.  $  3). 

Of  the  relation  of  these  "ideas"  to  their  correspondent  qualities  or  objects,  he 
says :  "  The  ideas  of  primary  qualities  of  bodies  are  resemblances  of  them,  and 
their  patterns  do  really  exist  in  the  bodies  themselves ;  but  the  ideas  produced  in 
us  by  their  secondary  qualities  have  no  resemblance  of  them  at  all."  He  ex- 
pressly defines  knowledge  of  every  kind  to  be  the  discernment  of  an  agreement  or 
disagreement  between  two  entities ;  in  the  case  of  sense-knowledge,  between  the 
representative  idea  and  its  counterpart. 

The  language  of  Locke  in  these  passages,  if  strictly  construed,  would  seem  to 
declare  that  it  is  by  the  intervention  of  representative  ideas  that  we  perceive  sen- 
sible objects,  and  that  we  can  only  know  them  so  far  as  we  discern  that  they  "re- 
semble "  or  "  agree  with  "  their  objects.  Hence  it  has  been  charged  upon  him  that 
he  taught  the  doctrine  of  perception  by  means  of  intervening  images  or  ideas.  It 
becomes  a  question  of  great  interest  therefore,  what  he  actually  intended  by 
this  careless  and  confused  language.  It  is  obvious  that  any  such  theory  of  know- 
ledge, when  applied  to  sense-perception,  would  involve  a  positive  self-contradic- 
tion, or  else  an  idle  and  useless  expedient.  If  we  can  only  know  a  material  ob-- 
ject  by  means  of  the  intervening  idea,  which  "represents"  or  agrees  with  it, 
then  we  can  never  reach  or  know  the  object  at  all;  for  we  may  go  on  by  a  succes- 
sion of  processes  ad  infinitum,  and,  when  we  have  done,  we  shall  only  have 
reached  a  representative  idea,  but  shall  never  have  grasped  the  object  itself.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  it  be  conceded  that  we  can  and  do  perceive  material  objects, 
and,  in  perceiving  them,  discern  that  the  idea  is  "  conformed  to,"  "  agrees  with  " 
or  "  represents,"  its  object,  then  we  must  be  able  to  compare  the  two  together — • 
the  material  object  and  its  idea.  But  in  order  to  be  able  to  compare  the  object 
with  its  idea,  we  must  know  the  two  terms  which  we  compare — i.  e.,  the  object 
itself  as  well  as  the  idea.  But  if  we  know  the  object  already,  of  what  use  is  it, 
or  how  is  it  possible,  to  acquire  knowledge  of  it  by  the  idea  ?  This  would  make 
it  impossible  to  know  the  secondary  qualities  by  any  means  whatever,  for  Locke 
expressly  asserts  that  no  similarity  exists  between  the  ideas  of  secondary  qualities 
and  the  qualities  themselves — as  the  smell,  etc.,  of  the  violet,  and  the  qualities  in 
objects  which  produce  them. 

These  consequences,  so  fatal  to  the  representative  theory,  supposing  Locke  to  hava 
held  it,  would  lead  us  to  question  whether  he  intended  by  "  idea,"  in  every  or  in  any 


§  130.  THEORIES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTION.  197 

case,  an  intervening  representative  image ;  and  by  the  words  "  to  resemble/'  "  to  be 
conformed  to,"  "  to  agree  with,"  any  relation  discerned  by  the  process  of  comparison. 

But  whatever  doubt  there  may  be  in  respect  to  the  doctrines  which  Locke  ac- 
tually taught  in  respect  to  perception,  there  can  be  no  question  at  all  in  respect 
to  the  construction  which  other  writers  gave  them,  or  to  the  inferences  which  they 
derived  from  the  principles  which  they  imputed  to  Locke.  (Cf.  $  145.) 

g  130.  George  Berkeley  (Principles  of  Human  Knowledge,  $  18 
sqq.),  assuming  that  ideas  only  are  the  direct  objects  of  the  mind's  Bishop  George 
knowledge  in  sense-perception,  concludes  that  it  is  impossible  that  David  Hume 
the  mind  should  know  that  the  material  or  external  world  exists 
at  all.  It  is  impossible  that  the  mind  should  know  the  objects  which  the  ideas 
are  said  to  resemble.  For,  in  the  first  place,  one  idea  can  only  be  like  an  idea, 
and  can  never  be  like  an  object;  and  second,  if  the  idea  was  like  the  object,  we 
could  never  know  this  likeness  except  by  knowing  both  the  idea  and  its  object. 
AH  that  the  mind  can  know  are  its  own  sensations  or  modifications.  The  distinc- 
tion between  primary  and  secondary  qualities  is  not  well-founded.  All  we  know 
is  that  on  occasion  of  the  ideas  of  extension,  motion,  and  figure,  we  have  the  sen- 
sations of  color,  taste,  and  sound.  Ideas  exist  only  so  far  as  they  are  perceived. 
The  laws  which  we  conceive  to  govern  material  things,  only  govern  the  combina- 
tions of  our  ideas.  Real  objects,  as  we  call  them,  are  only  combinations  of  ideas; 
the  only  difference  between  them  and  the  so-called  imaginary  ideas  consists  entirely 
in  this,  that  the  first  are  not  dependent  on  our  will  to  produce  them,  but  are  al- 
ways present  to  our  minds,  whether  we  will  or  no.  Imaginary  ideas,  on  the  other 
hand,  come  and  go  according  as  we  will.  Real  ideas  are  also  more  lively  and 
distinct,  while  those  of  the  imagination  are  faint  and  confused.  The  knowledge 
of  spirit  is  strikingly  contrasted  with  that  which  we  have  of  matter.  We  know 
ourselves  and  our  own  states  or  modifications  directly.  We  know  our 
thoughts,  feelings,  etc.,  not  their  ideas.  That  the  universe  is  permanent  in  its 
objects — viz.,  ideas — and  also  in  its  laws,  is  to  be  explained  by  the  fact,  that  the 
Eternal  Spirit  constantly  sustains  and  presents  these  ideas  for  the  contemplation 
of  created  spirits.  By  means  of  these,  the  attributes  and  government  of  God  are 
made  known.  All  the  things  that  we  perceive,  are  the  ideas  of  God. 

Berkeley's  Essay  toioard  a  New  Theory  of  Vision,  1709,  was  the  most  important 
contribution  which  he  made  to  the  theory  of  sense-perception.  This  was  fol- 
lowed by  The  Theory  of  Vision  Vindicated  and  Explained,  1733.  In  these  essays 
Berkeley  gave  greater  precision  and  fullness  to  the  doctrine  of  the  acquired  per- 
ceptions. The  fact  that  some  of  our  perceptions  are  acquired  was  familiarly 
known  and  generally  accepted  before  the  time  of  Berkeley.  It  was  generally 
held,  however,  that  the  acquired  judgments  were  formed  by  means  of  the  pro- 
perties of  light,  as  taught  in  the  science  of  optics.  This  doctrine  Berkeley  sets 
Aside,  and  clearly  establishes  the  truth  that  it  is  by  sensations  attending  the  varied 
use  of  the  eyes,  by  the  confusion  and  clearness  of  the  vision,  etc.,  etc.,  that  these 
judgments  of  distance  and  magnitude  are  formed,  and  that  these  judgments  are 
wholly  matters  of  experience  concerning  the  ordinary  course  of  nature. 

David  Hume  was  not  content  to  apply  the  ideal  theory  to  the  world  of  matter, 
tut  he  maintained  that  it  was  as  true  of  the  world  of  spirits,  rejecting  the  dis- 
tinction made  in  favor  of  the  latter  by  Berkeley,  and  urging  that  we  know  nothing 
of  the  mind  except  only  $he  ideas  which  we  experience,  thus  resolving  all  real 
existences  into  mere  collections  of  ideas. 


198  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  131. 

$  131.     Dr.  Thomas  Peid,  the  father  of  the    so-called  Scottish 
l<i    sf     "1J"    Philosophy,   being  startled  by  the  consequences  which  Berkeley 
Dr.  T.  Brown.'    and   Hume   derived   from   their   construction   of  Locke's    theory 
of  sense-perception,  was  led  to  review  not  only  the  doctrine  of  re- 
presentative   perception,    but    also    some    other    principles    which    Locke   was 
understood  to  advocate  in  respect  to  the  origin  and  elements  of  knowledge.     The 
features  of  his  system  are  as  follows* 

1.  He  successfully  exposed  the  groundlessness,  inconsistency,  and  contradictions 
of  the  ancient  and  modern  theories  of  representative  perception,  and  cleared  the 
way  for  a  theory  more  accordant  with  experience  and  common  sense. 

2.  Reid  vindicated  the  general  principle,  that  no  theory  of  perception  is  enti- 
tled to  confidence  as  truly  philosophical,  which  contradicts  the  universal  convic- 
tions and  the  common  sense  of  mankind,  when  they  apply  their  understandings 
to  the  judgment  of  truths  which  they  are  competent  to  decide  upon.     This  was  a 
special  inference  from  the  general  axioms  of  Reid's  philosophy. 

3.  Reid  insisted  that  the  mind  is  active  in  sense-perception'  and  did  this  with 
an  earnestness  rare  among  philosophers,  not  only  of  the  English,  but  of  any 
school  whatever.     The  ancients,  and  the  moderns  before  him,  did  indeed  assert 
that  the  mind  is  active  in  its  higher  functions ;  but  they  as  distinctly  denied  that 
it  is  active  in  the  lower.     It  has  been  nearly  the  uniform  doctrine  of  all   the 
schools  that,  in   sense-perception,  objects  act  upon  the  mind  so  as  to  impress 
ideas,  and  that,  in  the  reception  of  these  ideas,  the  mind  is  chiefly  or  wholly 
passive.     Against  this  doctrine  Reid  occasionally  protests,  in  language  like  the 
following  :  "  An  object,  in  being  perceived,  does  not  act  at  all.     I  perceive  the 
walls  of  the  room  where  I  sit :  but  they  are  perfectly  inactive,  and  therefore  act 
not  upon  the  mind.    To  be  perceived  is  what  logicians  call  an  external  denomina- 
tion, which  implies  neither  action  nor  quality  in  the  object  perceived.     Nor  could 
men  have  ever  gone  into  this  notion  that  perception  is  owing  to  some  action  of 
the  object  upon  the  mind,  were  it  not  thative  are  so  prone  to  form  our  notions 
of  the  mind  from  some  similitude  we  conceive  between  it  and  body." 

4.  As  intimately  connected  with  the  preceding,  Reid  asserts  that  the  faculty 
and  act  of  judgment  are  present  in  connection  with  the  perceptions  of  sense. 

5.  Reid  recognized  and  enforced  the  distinction  between  sensation  and  percep- 
tion ;  and  thus  prepared  the  way  for  the  correct  and  complete  determination  of 
these  two  elements  in  the  process  of  sense-perception. 

Dugald  Stewart,  the  successor  of  Reid  in  the  school  of  Scotch  philosophers, 
followed  closely  and  almost  timidly  in  the  footsteps  of  his  predecessor,  whom  he 
greatly  admired  and  revered. 

1.  He  discriminated  more  carefully  between  sensation  and  perception  than 
Reid.     He  limited  perception  to  the  act  of  apprehending  the  objects  appropriate 
to  each  separate  sense,  and  escaped  the  confusion  and  ambiguity  which  Reid 
committed,  of  confounding  the  original  with  the  acquired  perceptions. 

Of  three  of  the  senses — smell,  taste,  and  hearing— he  denied  perception  alto- 
gether, in  fact  though  not  in  form.  He  expressly  asserted  that  these,  by  them- 
selves, give  no  information  of  external  objects  ( Outlines  of  Moral  Philosophy,  $ 
15).  He  asserts  that  the  sensation  of  color,  even  as  given  in  vision,  can  reside 
in  the  mind  only,  and  is  purely  subjective  j  giving  no  relation  of  extension,  and 
in  our  early  experience  clearly  separable  from  it.  • 

2.  »Stewart  apprehended,  far  more  olearly  than  Reid,  the  true  character  of  what 


§132.  THEORIES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTION.  199 

he  calls  the  mathematical  affections  of  matter,  and  the  relation  of  these  affections 
to  space  and  to  our  belief  in  space  as  a  necessary  existence.  These  mathemati- 
cal affections  are  extension  and  figure,  and  are  distinguished  from  the  other 
primary  qualities,  such  as  hardness  or  solidity,  and  are  thus  characterized: — 1 
They  presuppose  the  existence  of  our  external  senses.  2.  The  notion  of  them 
involves  an  irresistible  conviction  of  the  external  existence  of  their  objects — viz., 
of  space.  3.  This  conviction  is  neither  the  result  of  reasoning,  nor  of  experi- 
ence, but  must  be  considered  as  an  ultimate  and  essential  law  of  human  thought. 
(Phil.  Essays.-) 

3.  Stewart  adds  to  the  doctrine  of  Reid,  that  we  believe  in  the  existence  of  the 
material  world,  by  a  necessary  suggestion.  The  explanation  of  our  belief  in  iti 
permanence,  he  finds  in  our  more  comprehensive  belief  in  the  permanence  of  the 
laws  of  nature. 

Dr.  Thomas  Brown  followed  in  the  same  school  with  Reid  and  Stewart.  The 
analysis  which  he  has  given  of  the  processes  and  the  products  of  the  sense-per- 
ceptions, is  one  of  the  boldest  and  the  most  subtle  which  is  to  be  found  in  the 
whole  compass  of  English  psychology. 

1.  Dr.  Brown  attached  great  importance  to  the  muscular  sensations.     He  was 
one  of  the  earliest  of  English  psychologists  to  recognize  and  to  distinguish  them 
from  the  sensations  as  usually  accepted.     This  distinction  is  now  almost  univer- 
sally adopted.     Dr.  Brown  made  so  much  of  these  sensations,  as  to  derive  from 
them  the  notions  of  extension  and  of  externality. 

2.  He  scarcely  recognizes  Jhe  distinction  adopted  by  Reid  between  sensation 
and  perception.     So  far  as  the  original  perceptions  are  concerned,  he  rejects  it 
altogether.     The  only  acts  of  perception  which  he  acknowledges  or  describes  are 
acts  of  acquired  perception. 

He  refers  our  belief  in  the  external  and  material  world  to  the  principle  of  cau- 
sation. We  know  our  sensations  as  subjective  states  of  the  soul.  We  believe 
that  they  must  be  produced  by  a  cause.  We  know  that  they  are  not  caused  by 
ourselves.  There  must  be  causes  other  than  ourselves.  These  causes  are  material 
non-egos.  The  existence  of  these  non-egos  is  not  suggested  directly,  as  Reid 
teaches,  but  it  is  inferred.  "  Perception,  then,  even  in  that  class  of  feelings  by 
which  we  learn  to  consider  ourselves  as  surrounded  by  substances  extended  and 
resisting,  is  only  another  name,  as  I  have  said,  for  the  result  of  certain  associa- 
tions and  inferences  that  flow  from  other  more  general  principles  of  the  mind." 
(Lee.  26.)  Cf.  §  40. 

3.  It  is  equally  clear  that  Brown,  to  be  consistent,  would  reject  nearly  or  alto- 
gether the  distinction  between  the  primary  and  the  secondary  qualities  of  matter 
as  explained  by  Reid,  and  in  part  adopted  by  Stewart. 

g  132.  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  the  deservedly  eminent  Professor  of  Logic 
and  Metaphysics  in  the  University  of  Edinburrgh,  was  one  of  the 
greatest  philosophers  of  Great  Britain.  He  devoted  his  researches 
to  two  leading  topics :  Formal  Logic,  and  the  Theories  of  Sense-perception.  He 
had  studied  the  history  of  these  theories  with  greater  care  than  any  one  of  hia 
own  time,  and  had  gathered  from  his  historical  researches  the  most  valuable  re* 
suits  in  the  way  of  observation  and  analysis.  His  contributions  are  important  in 
respect  to  all  the  points  which  have  been  noticed. 

1.  Sensation  and  perception  were  more  carefully  discriminated  by  him,  as  tt 
their  nature  and  material  relations,  than  by  any  philosopher  before  his  time. 


200  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  132. 

They  are  viewed  by  him  as  inseparable  elements  of  a  single  mental  state,  and  are 
called  sensation  and  perception  proper. 

2.  Hamilton  asserts  that  sense-perception  involves  the  action  of  the  intelligence 
in  the  form  of  judgment,  or  the  discrimination  of  relations.     It  follows  of  neces- 
sity that,  in  perception,  man  is  active,  and  not  simply  receptive  or  passive.    These 
important  truths  Hamilton  enforces  on  every  occasion. 

3.  In  respect  to  extension  and  apace,  Hamilton  teaches,  with  Kant  and  others, 
that  while  the  spatial  relations  of  every  material  body  are  known  by  sense-per- 
ception, yet  space  itself  is  pre-supposed  by  the  intuition  of  the  intellect,  in  order 
that  it  may  be  possible  for  any  of  these  relations  to  be  perceived  as  actual.    Space 
must  be  known  a  priori,  in  order  that  extension  may  be  known  a  posteriori. 

4.  In  respect  to  externality,  Hamilton  teaches  positively,  though  not  with  so 
great  clearness  as  is  desirable,  that  the  term  is  used  in  two  senses:  (1)  as  de- 
noting the  diversity  of  the  sentient  organism  from  the  perceiving  intellect ;  and 
(2)  the  diversity  of  material  objects  from  the  material  organism  which  the  soul 
animates,  and  by 'which  it  apprehends. 

In  respect  to  the  first  of  these  relations,  he  asserts  that  it  is  directly  appre- 
hended in  every  act  of  sense-perception. 

In  respect  to  the  second,  he  teaches  that  it  is  gained  by  the  exercise  of  the 
locomotive  power  in  the  form  of  muscular  effort.  This  effort  is  resisted,  and 
with  the  resistance  is  gained  the  correlative  of  a  resisting  something,  external 
to  the  body  or  sentient  organism.  "  When  I  am  conscious  of  the  exertion  of 
an  enorganic  volition  to  move,  and  aware  that  the  muscles  are  obedient  to  my 
will,  but  at  the  same  time  aware  that  my  limb  is  arrested  in  its  motion  by 
some  external  impediment,  in  this  case  I  cannot  be  conscious  of  myself  as  the 
resisted  relative,  without  at  the  same  time  being  conscious,  being  immediately 
percipient  of  a  not-self  as  the  resisting  correlative." 

5.  The   qualities   of  material   objects  are   treated   by   Hamilton   as   though, 
as  qualities,  they  were  the  direct  object  of  immediate  sense-perception.     This 
view  is  certainly  implied  in  the  whole  of  his  doctrine,  and  his  history  of  the 
sensible  qualities  of  matter.     This  is  a  consequence  of  his  failure  occasionally 
to  discriminate  between  sense-perception  as  direct  and  reflex.   He  does  not  always 
distinctly  hold  to  the  fact  that  if  in  original  sense-perception,  we  can  in  any  sense 
apprehend  the  qualities  of  matter,  we  can  only  apprehend  those  which  pertain  to 
the  animated  organism.  We  hold  that  the  qualities  01  matter  are  only  known  by 
acquired  perception  in  reflex  action. 

6.  Hamilton  sometimes  confounds  the  conditions  of  perception  with  percep- 
tion itself. 

He  falls  into  this  error  in  applying  the  doctrines  of  latent  modifications  of 
the  mind  to  the  phenomena  of  vision  and  hearing.  He  argues  that,  because 
two  portions  of  extension,  or  two  parts  of  an  extended  substance,  each  of 
which  by  itself  is  invisible,  become  visible  when  annexed  so  as  to  form  one 
continuum,  that  therefore  each  of  them,  by  itself,  must  obscurely  affect  the 
sensorium  or  the  mind.  So,  two  separate  sounds,  each  one  of  which  might  be 
too  feeble  to  be  heard  alone,  when  uttered  together,  cannot  fail  to  be  heard. 
In  both  these  cases  the  distinction  is  overlooked  between  the  action  of  physical 
or  physiological  stimuli  upon  the  sensorium,  and  their  effect  on  the  sensorium  as 
the  appropriate  and  indeed  the  only  condition  of  the  responses  of  conscioui 
sentiency  or  perception. 


§  132.  THEORIES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTION.  201 

7.  Hamilton  attaches  too  great  importance  to  the  subjective  sensations,  or  the 
idiopathic  affections  of  the  nervous  system,  which  are   excited  by  electrical  ac- 
tion, indigestion,  or  a  blow.     The  sparks  which  are  elicited  by  a  blow  over  the 
eyes,  the  light,  the  sound,  the  taste,  the  ringing  of  the  ears  which  electric  or  other 
agencies  occasion,  are  doubtless  owing  to  a  special  stimulus  of  the  sensorium, 
and  to  this  only. 

8.  Hamilton's  theory  of  perception  is  vitiated  still  further  by  the  metaphysical 
assumption  that  we  know  directly  only  phenomena,  whether  of  matter  or  of 
mind.     We  hold  that  neither  phenomena  nor  qualities,  as  such,  are  perceived,  but 
objects,  percepts,  or  beings;  and  that  it  is  by  an  after-thought,  or  reflex  process, 
that  these  are  connected  as  qualities,  and  are  referred  to  substances. 

9.  The  most  eminent  service  which  Hamilton  has  rendered  to  the  theory  of 
sense-perception,  is  his  criticism  of  all  the  possible  forms  of  the  doctrine  of  repre- 
sentative or  mediate  perception,  and  his  demonstration  that  every  such  theory  is 
untenable. 

We  give  the  substance  of  his  criticism  in  our  own  language,  for  the  sake  of 
brevity,  interposing  such  qualifications  and  explanations  as  may  serve  to  illus- 
trate and  explain  it. 

In  respect  to  the  act  of  sense-perception,  one  of  two  positions  may  be  taken: 
the  mind  is  endowed  with  the  power  of  perceiving  material  objects  by  a  direct 
and  intuitive  energy,  without  the  intervention  of  any  intermediate  object;  or, 
the  mind  can  perceive  material  objects  only  through  the  medium  of  some  inter- 
vening object. 

It  will  here  be  observed,  that  the  alternative  does  not  relate  to  the  conditions 
of  such  perception  whether  material  or  physiological.  It  is  simply  a  question 
whether  there  are  or  are  not  intermediate  objects  to  the  psychological  act. 

If  the  first  position  be  taken,  then  the  only  obligation  which  rests  upon  the 
philosopher,  is  to  state  the  conditions  which  are  essential  to  the  act,  and  to  analyze 
the  act  into  its  elementary  constituents,  as  given  in,  or  inferred  from,  our  conscious 
experience  and  careful  observation. 

The  person  who  takes  the  second  position  is  bound  to  show  why  this  hypothesis 
is  necessary.  The  natural  and  universal  belief  of  mankind  is,  that  objects  are 
perceived  directly.  He  who  asserts  that  this  is  impossible,  ought  to  give  some 
reason  for  deviating  from  this  belief.  The  several  reasons  that  are  to  be  found  in 
the  whole  history  of  philosophy,  are  by  Hamilton  reduced  to  five  groups,  under- 
lying each  of  which  is  a  single  fundamental  principle.  The  first  of  them  is,  that 
an  act  of  cognition  is  an  act  of  the  mind ;  and  to  suppose  that  the  mind  should 
know  that  which  is  not  itself,  is  to  suppose  that  it  can  go  out  of  itself.  To  this 
it  is  replied  :  1.  That  if  we  cannot  explain  how  it  is  possible  that  the  mind  should 
act  on  that  which  is  not  itself,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  cannot  be  a  fact.  The 
fact  may  be  ultimate,  and  for  this  reason  inexplicable.  2.  The  principle  proves 
too  much,  for  it  would  involve  the  inference  that  the  mind  cannot  act  upon  matter, 
as  it  manifestly  does  in  volition.  3.  Moreover,  it  would  carry  with  itself  the  co&- 
Bequence  that  matter  cannot  act  out  of  itself  upon  the  mind,  and  of  course  cannot 
produce  a  representative  image  of  its  object. 

The  second  reason  is.  that  mind  and  matter  are  substances  not  only  of  a  differ- 
ent, but  of  the  most  opposite  nature.  That  which  knows  immediately,  must  be 
of  a  nature  corresponding  or  analogous  to  that  which  is  known:  the  mind  cannot, 
therefore,  know  matter  directly ;  an  intermediate  something  must  be  interposed* 

9* 


202  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  132. 

This  assumption  is  of  the  widest  prevalence,  and  underlies  almost  every  theory  of 
representative  perception.  It  accounts  for  the  variety  of  the  views  of  the  nature 
of  the  interposed  media  held  by  both  ancients  and  moderns.  When  this  medium 
was  conceived  akin  to  the  mind,  it  gave  the  intentional  species  of  the  schoolmen, 
or  the  ideas  of  Malebranche  and  Berkeley.  When  it  was  supposed  to  be  iden- 
tical with  the  mind,  it  gave  the  gnontic  reasons  of  the  Platonists,  the  pre-ejcixtimj 
species  of  Avicenna,  the  ideas  of  Descartes,  Arnauld,  Leibnitz,  Buffon,  and 
Condillac,  the  phenomena  of  Kant,  the  extemal  utates  of  Dr.  Brown.  To  the 
influence  of  this  assumption,  are  to  be  traced  the  systems  of  the  absolute  iden- 
tity of  mind  and  matter  in  the  opposite  theories  of  exclusive  materialism  and 
of  spiritual  idealism. 

This  grand  assumption  should  be  rejected  as  arbitrary,  unphilosophical,  and 
contradictory  to  our  plain  experience. 

The  third  reason  for  this  hypothesis  is,  that  the  mind  can  only  know  that  to 
which  it  is  immediately  present.  External  objects  can  hence  be  brought  within 
reach  of  the  mind  only  by  means  of  some  intermediate  representative.  The  pro- 
per answer  to  this  reason  is,  that  the  mind  is  present  in  every  part  of  the  body 
so  far  as  to  act  and  to  be  acted  upon,  and  that  the  real  object  of  immediate  per- 
ception is  some  part  of  the  body  as  excited  to  a  specific  sensation.  The  corrected 
view  of  the  relation  of  the  soul  to  the  body,  and  of  what  is  the  real  object  of  the 
mind's  external  perception,  sets  aside  this  third  reason. 

Reid  and  Stewart  attempt  to  set  this  aside  by  a  failure  to  conceive  these  points 
rightly,  and  they  require  some  agency  of  the  Deity,  and  an  inexplicable  con- 
nection between  the  sensation  and  perception,  which  is  unphilosophieal  and  un- 
satisfactory. 

The  fourth  ground  is  stated  by  Hume,  that  the.  same  object,  as  a  table,  at  differ- 
ent distances  changes  its  dimensions,  but  the  object  itself  does  not  change ;  there- 
fore the  object  must  be  apprehended  by  an  intermediate  and  changing  representa- 
tion. To  this  it  is  answered,  that  the  same  table  is  not  perceived,  so  far  as  vision 
is  concerned,  when  near  and  remote,  but  a  different  object  in  each  case  is  the  im- 
mediate object  of  sense-perception. 

The  fifth  reason  is  stated  by  the  elder  Fichte,  that,  as  the  will  must  act  in  view 
of  intelligent  objects,  these  must  be  within  the  mind;  so  far  then  as  it  acts  in  re- 
spect to  material  objects  these  must  be  represented  in  the  mind. 

To  this  it  may  be  replied,  that  the  act  of  intelligence  is  in  the  mind,  and  this 
is  all  that  is  required  as  the  condition  of  the  act  of  will.  Besides,  the  act  of  the 
will  respects  future  results,  which  must  necessarily  be  mediately  represented. 
It  is  not  denied  that  the  mind  is  capable  of  mediate  knowledge.  The  question 
at  issue  is,  whether  the  act  of  sense-perception  is  an  act  of  this  kind. 

After  having  shown  that  this  hypothesis  of  a  representative  perception  is  unne- 
cessary, Hamilton  shows  at  length  that  it  does  not  stand  the  test?  by  which  every 
legitimate  hypothesis  may  properly  be  tried.  These  conditions  are  :  (1.)  That  it  bo 
necessary,  and  be  more  intelligible  than  the  fact  which  it  explains.  (2.)  That  it 
shall  not  subvert  that  which  it  proposes  to  explain,  or  the  ground  on  which  it 
rests.  (3.)  That  the  facts  in  explanation  of  which  it  is  devised  really  exist,  and 
are  not  themselves  hypothetical.  (4.)  That  it  does  not  subvert  the  phenomena 
which  it  seeks  to  account  for.  (5.)  That  it  works  naturally  and  simply.  The 
hypothesis  of  representative  perception  fails  to  answer  to  any  of  these  conditions, 
and  must  therefore  be  rejected  by  every  true  philosopher.  (Met., Lee.  xxv.  and  xxvi 


§133.  THEORIES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTION.  203 

$  133.  Immanuel  Kant,  the  great  metaphysician  of  Germany,  has 
treated  of  sense-perception   only  indirectly.      He  has    given    no  Immanuel 

formal  theory  of  its  processes,  but  has  metaphysically  analyzed  its  German  school 
results,  and  thus  has  indirectly  taught  a  partial  theory  of  the 
power  itself  and  its  functions.  First  of  all,  he  implies  that  the  soul,  in  its  sense- 
perceptions,  is  passive  or  receptive  only.  He  contrasts  the  receptivity  of  the  soul 
in  sense  with  its  activity  or  spontaneity  in  the  understanding.  He  indirectly 
teaches,  by  the  assumptions  that  underlie  his  whole  system,  that  the  process  of 
sense-perception  is  not  complete  until  the  understanding,  by  the  judging  power, 
conceives  under  some  of  its  forms  the  matter  given  by  sense.  Had  he  distin- 
guished between  the  natural  judgments  which  concern  individual  things  and  their 
relations,  and  the  secondary  judgments  that  contemplate  general  conceptions, 
there  could  be  little  to  object  to  in  his  theory ;  but  this  omission  is  fatal  to  its 
completeness  and  its  truth.  Sense  stands  on  the  one  side  as  a  purely  passive  re- 
ceptivity of  individual  objects,  and  the  understanding,  on  the  other,  as  active, 
but  as  concerned  solely  with  generalized  concepts  alone. 

Of  the  relation  of  sensation  to  perception,  Kant  teaches  that  sensation  gives 
the  matter,  and  perception — i.  e., — intuition — furnishes  the  form.  The  form  es- 
sential to  any  and  every  act  of  external  intuition  is  space.  All  material  objects, 
so  far  as  they  are  perceived  at  all,  are  perceived  in  some  relation  to  space — that 
is,  they  are  perceived  as  extended  objects.  Kant  recognizes  this  as  a  fact  of 
actual  experience.  But  the  fact  he  subjects  to  no  farther  analysis,  least  of  all 
does  he  examine  farther  the  process  by  which  the  product  is  reached.  Instead 
of  studying  the  fact  in  its  conditions  and  elements,  he  seeks  to  account  for  its 
possibility  and  the  trustworthiness  of  its  results,  on  grounds  of  speculative 
philosophy.  For  this  reason,  his  discussion  of  space  has  an  intimate  relation 
to  his  theory  of  sense-perception,  and  the  conclusion  which  he  reached  has 
explained  the  discussions  of  all  physiologists  and  psychologists  since  his 
time.  This  conclusion  was,  that  space  and  time  must  be  assumed  as  the  ne- 
cessary conditions  of  our  subjective  experience  in  both  consciousness  and 
perception,  but  we  are  not  thereby  authorized  to  believe  in  their  objective 
reality.  We  cannot,  indeed,  perceive  .  any  material  object  by  means  of  the 
senses  without  involving  necessary  relations  to  space  directly,  and  indirectly 
to  time.  It  does  not,  however,  follow  that  space  is  a  reality.  It  is  supposa- 
ble,  though  not  to  us  conceivable,  that  to  minds  constituted  differently  from 
our  own,  these  forms,  with  the  relations  which  they  involve,  should  not  be  ne- 
cessarily assumed.  (Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft.  ELLehre,  ii  Th.,  1  Abth.;  ii 
Buch,  2  Hauptst.  3  Abschn.) 

In  respect  to  the  reality  of  external  objects,  Kant  recognizes  the  fact  in  our 
psychical  experience,  that  material  objects  are  not  only  psrceived  as  extended 
and  spatial,  but  also  as  external;  or  in  other  words,  as  nnn-rgna.  In  sense- 
perception  this  distinction  is  necessarily  involved.  Indeed,  it  is  included  as 
an  essential  element  in  the  process  and  its  result.  But  it  does  not  follow,  be- 
cause the  mind  makes  this  distinction,  that  there  is  a  reality  corresponding 
to  this  non-ego.  For  (1.)  The  non-ego,  as  a  being,  is  transcendental  to  all  phe- 
nomena. (2.)  It  is  posited  in  space,  which  is  necessary  as  a  form  of  sense; 
but  which  may  be  only  an  illusion.  Kant  would  however  demonstrate,  on  the 
ground  of  speculative  necessity,  that  this  is  impossible.  He  contends  that  we 
must  assume  that  there  is  something  permanent  ani  real  without,  in  order  to 


204  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  133. 

account  for  the  changing  modifications  within.  Of  the  existence  of  an  external 
world,  we  can  be  rationally  assured,  but  of  it,  we  can  have  no  direct  perception. 
Even  the  self,  or  ego,  is  not  apprehended  as  a  permanent  something.  It  is 
only  concluded  to  exist  as  the  thought-conception  of  a  spiritual  substance  with 
capacities  for  spiritual  acts.  Ail  that  we  are  conscious  of,  are  our  changing 
modifications  in  time.  But  these  can  only  be  rationally  explained  by  a  per- 
manent reality  which  causes  them. 

The  theory  of  sense-perception  was  discussed  by  the  successors  of  Kant 
chiefly  in  its  purely  metaphysical  relations.  In  the  writings  of  Fichte,  Schell- 
ing,  and  Hegel,  still  less  attention  is  given  to  psychological  analysis,  meta- 
physical principles  and  relations  being  almost  exclusively  considered. 
Herbart  J  F  J*  F.  Herbart's  theory  of  sense-perception  may  be  briefly 
stated  as  follows: 

The  soul,  though  a  simple  substance,  is  capable  of  being  excited  by  the  action 
of  various  material  stimuli  to  various  reactions  of  its  own.  Certain  classes  of 
these,  when  experienced,  are  sensations.  A  sensation  is  the  soul's  reception  of, 
or  its  reaction  against,this  material  stimulus.  The  sensations  differ  from  one  another 
in  quality  or  kind  on  the  one  hand  and  in  energy  or  intensity  on  the  other. 

As  the  several  sensations  are  experienced,  each  continues  to  exist  in  the 
soul,  with  a  force  or  tendency  to  be  reproduced.  As  soon  as  favoring  conditions 
present  themselves,  past  sensations  reappear  in  the  order  of  the  soul's 
original  experience  of  them.  When  such  a  series  is  viewed  [experienced?]  from 
one  sensation  regarded  as  fixed,  it  has  time-relations;  and  by  means  of  the 
mutual  struggles  or  tendencies  of  several  series  of  experienced  sensations  to 
gain  possession  a  second  time  of  the  soul  without  success,  there  is  generated 
the  idea  of  pure  or  simple  time. 

The  apprehension  of  time  prepares  the  body  for  that  of  space.  Sensations 
experienced  and  recalled  in  the  time  series,  are  disputed  by  other  sensations  and 
series  of  sensations  that  struggle  to  occupy  the  soul.  To  provide  for  the  possi- 
bility of  these  mutual  struggles,  and  under  the  experience  of  the  pressure  which 
they  create,  the  mind  constructs  a  conception  of  space  first  as  occupied,  and 
then  as  empty  or  void. 

Thus,  time  and  space  result  to  the  mind  as  the  effects  of  mutually  blended 
or  mutually  repelling  series  of  sensations. 

When  space  and  time  are  produced,  that  which  is  next  developed  is  the  appre- 
hension of  the  difference  between  bodily  affections  and  material  objects.  This 
results  from  an  experience  of  certain  positive  sensations,  particularly  those  of 
touch  joined  with  those  of  the  muscular  sense.  A  certain  portion  of  space  within 
the  body  is  measured  in  every  direction  by  various  time- series  of  sensations, 
terminated  by  those  appropriate  to  superficial  touch.  Other  sensations  we  p-  o- 
ject  beyond  the  surface  of  the  body,  at  greater  or  less  distances,  all  of  which  are 
measured  by  successive  time-series  of  sensations,  in  experience  or  imagination. 

Sensations  which  do  not  occur  within  the  space  of  the  body,  nor  on  its  sur- 
face as  explained,  are  projected  beyond — t.  e.,  are  apprehended  as  not  within  its 
space.  This  constitutes  perception  in  the  lowest,  or  the  elementary  stage.  After- 
wards are  developed  apperception,  or  the  knowledge  of  mental  states  by  » 
secondary  act  of  knowledge ;  then  the  knowledge  of  substance  and  its  attri- 
butes ;  then  a  knowledge  of  material  things,  or  of  material  substances  with  ma- 
terial attributes  and  space-relations. 


§  133.  THEORIES   OF   SENSE-PERCEPTION.  205 

Schleiermacher,  the  distinguished  philosopher  and  theologian,  deserves  also  to 
be  named  for  the  very  important  contributions  which  he  made  to  the  theory 
of  sense-perception.  These  were  partly  indirect,  as  he  opposed  so  decidedly  the 
surrent  of  the  great  leaders  of  metaphysical  speculation  in  Germany,  by  rejecting 
aiany  of  the  assumptions  which  are  fundamental  to  their  systems.  In  part,  also, 
they  were  direct,  in  the  positive  doctrines  which  he  taught  in  respect  to  the  condi- 
tions and  nature  of  sense-perception  as  a  process.  The  relations  of  space,  time, 
substance,  and  causa,  he  held,  as  against  Kant,  to  be  real  forms  of  things,  and  not 
merely  the  forms  of  our  apprehension  of  things.  The  reality  of  time  and  space 
must  be  assumed  without  misgivings  or  questionings.  Being  is  directly  appre- 
hended, as  well  as  phenomena  and  relations.  To  all  the  combinations  and  con- 
structions which  we  make  in  knowledge,  we  attribute  actual  reality.  Thought 
which,  in  Hegel,  is  the  all  in  all,  the  originator  of  the  relations  and  products  of 
knowledge,  according  to  Schleiermacher,  is  psychologically  dependent  upon 
sense-perception.  In  sense-perception  there  are  two  essential  elements :  the 
receptive,  styled  by  Schleiermacher  "the  organic  function"  and  the  a  priori  or 
spontaneous,  called  "  the  intellectual  function.  "  This  last  is  an  act  of  knowing  by 
relations,  and,  as  so  denned,  is  an  important  improvement  upon  Kant,  and 
Reid,  and  even  upon  Hamilton. 

Schleiermacher,  moreover,  teaches  that  the  two  elements,  the  organic  and  in- 
.tellectual,  are  present  in  different  proportions  in  the  different  faculties  and  acts 
of  sense-perception,  anticipating  in  this  the  law  of  Hamilton  respecting  the  in- 
verse proportion  of  sensation  and  perception  proper.  Important  contributions 
have  been  made  to  the  physiological  and  psychological  theories  of  sense-percep- 
tion by  many  distinguished  German  and  English  writers,  whom  it  is  not  im- 
portant that  we  should  notice. 


206  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §134. 

i 

PART  SECOND. 

REPRESENTATION  AND  REPRESENTATIVE  KNOWLEDGE. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE  REPRESENTATIVE   POWER    DEFINED   AND    EXPLAINED. 

§  134.  REPRESENTATION  or  ike  representative  power 
denned6  ami '?£  is  defined  in  general,  as  the  power  to  recall,  represent, 
and  reJcnow  objects  which  have  been  previously  known 
or  experienced.  More  briefly,  it  is  the  power  to  represent  objects 
previously  presented  to  the  mind.  Thus,  I  gaze  upon  a  tree,  a 
house,  or  a  mountain.  The  object  perceived  is  the  tree,  the 
house,  or  mountain,  before  my  eyes.  I  close  my  eyes,  and  "  my 
mind  makes  pictures  when  my  eyes  are  shut."  I  at  once  re- 
present or  see  with  "my  mind's  eye"  that  which  I  saw  just 
before  with  the  eyes  of  the  body. 

My  eyes  make  pictures  when  they  are  shut. 

I  see  a  fountain,  large  and  fair, 
A  willow,  and  a  ruined  hut.     COLERIDGE. 

Hamlet. — My  father — methinks  I  see  my  father! 

Horatio. — Oh,  where,  my  lord? 

Hamlet. —  In  my  mind's  eye,  Horatio.     SHAKSPEARE. 

In  like  manner  we  hear  a  sound,  either  singly,  as  the  solitary 
note  of  the  pigeon,  or  several  sounds  in  succession,  as  the  caw, 
caw,  of  the  crow,  the  roll  of  a  drum,  or  the  notes  of  a  musical 
air.  Let  the  sounds  cease.  We  can  still  distinctly  recall  them, 
and  seem  to  hear  them  again  with  the  mind,  though  the  mind 
make's  for  itself  all  the  sounds  which  it  seems  to  hear.  In  a 
similar  way  we  can  represent  the  percepts  that  are  appropriate  to 
the  senses  of  touch,  of  taste  and  of  smell ;  reviving  the  touch, 
taste,  and  smell  by  and  for  the  mind  alone. 

Music,  when  soft  voices  die, 

Vibrates  in  the  memory. 

Odors,  when  sweet  violets  sicken, 

Live  within  the  sense  they  quicken. — SHELLEY. 

We  are  not  limited  to  sensible  objects,  or  to  sense-percepts,  in 
the  exercise  of  this  power.  We  can  as  truly  represent  the  acts 


§  135.    REPRESENTATIVE  POWER  DEFINED  AND  EXPLAINED.    207 

and  the  affections  of  the  soul  itself.  Not  only  can  we  with  the 
mind's  eye  behold  the  tree  and  the  mountain  previously  seen, 
but  we  can  represent  the  act  of  the  mind  by  which  we  beheld  it, 
as  also  the  delight  which  -the  sight  occasioned.  We  not  only 
hear  a  musical  air  the  second  time,  but  we  revive  again  the  idea 
of  the  accompanying  pleasure.  So  is  it  with  the  relations  in 
which  the  objects  were  presented  at  first.  The  objects  themselves 
can  not  only  be  recalled  as  objects,  but  they  can  be  recalled  as 
related,  or  as  totals  made  up  of  the  objects  connected  by  the 
several  relations  under  which  they  were  originally  known. 
Whether  these  are  relations  of  space  or  time,  of  self  or  not-self; 
whether  necessary  and  permanent,  or  casual  and  changing ; 
whether  intellectual  or  emotional — whether  objective  or  subjec- 
tive ; — whatever  we  apprehend  in  presentation,  can  be  recalled 
in  representation. 

But  the  activity  of  the  mind  in  this  general  function  is  not 
limited  to  the  power  of  representing  objects  previously  present. 
It  can  so  far  modify  the  objects  of  the  past  experience,  as  to 
transform  them  into  new  creations.  It  becomes  in  this  way,  in 
an  eminent  sense,  a  creative  power.  The  mind  not  only  can 
depict  a  man,  a  tree,  or  a  mountain  as  actually  witnessed,  but  it 
can  alter  the  form,  the  dimensions,  and  the  appendages  or  ac- 
cidents of  each,  taking  parts  from  the  one  and  attaching  them 
to  parts  belonging  to  the  other.  So,  also,  it  can  create  or 
imagine  a  Lilliputian,  a  Centaur,  a  Parnassus,  an  Abdiel.  The 
representative  power  in  this  higher  form  is  called,  the  fancy  or 
the  imagination. 

§  135.  The  power  thus  to  act  is  called  the  repre- 
sentative, in  distinction  from,  and  in  contrast  with  the 
presentative    power.     In   sense-perception    and    con- 
sciousness, the  mind  presents  to   itself  for  the   first  time   the 
objects  of  its  direct  and  original  knowledge.     In  representat;on, 
it  presents  these  objects  a  second  time,  or  represents  them. 

It  is  also  called  reproduction,  or  the  reproductive  power, 
because  the  mind,  by  its  own  energy,  under  appropriate  circum- 
stances and  in  obedience  to  certain  laws,  reproduces  objects  pre- 
viously known. 

It  also  involves  the  power  to  retain  and  conserve,  in  a  certain 
sense,  that  which  has  been  acquired  by  the  mind.  To  this 


208  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  136. 

capacity  the  name  cf  retention  has  been  given,  or  the  retentive 
power. 

To  these  three  distinguishable  relations  of  this  power,  Hamil- 
ton has  not  only  assigned  separate  appellations,  but  has  treated 
them  as  separate  faculties,  viz.,  the  conservative,  reproductive, 
and  representative  faculties  (Met.,  Lee.  xx).  But  inasmuch  as 
it  is  implied  in  the  power  to  represent,  that  there  is  a  power  to 
reproduce ;  and  in  the  power  to  reproduce,  that  the  mind  can 
retain  or  conserve,  it  seems  more  philosophical  to  consider  and 
treat  retention  and  reproduction  as  the  essential  conditions  of 
representation,  rather  than  as  distinct  faculties. 

It  is  also  called  the  creative  power,  the  constructive  or  productive 

imagination,  when  it  evolves  new  products.     This  exercise  of  the 

representative  power  has  rarely  received  a  technical  appellation. , 

§  136.  The  objects  of  the  representative  voiver  are, 

Objects  of  the  111 

representative  as  has  already  been  implied,  mental  objects.  They 
are  not  real  things  or  real  percepts,  but  the  mind's 
creations  after  real  things.  They  are  spiritual  or  psychical,  not 
material  entities,  although  in  many  cases  they  concern  material 
things,  being  psychical  transcripts  of  them,  either  as  believed  to  be 
real  or  as  conceived  to  be  possible.  When  they  concern  the  soul 
only,  they  are  not  the  real  soul,  or  its  present  acts,  but  psychical 
transcripts  of  the  real  soul  in  a  past  or  possible  condition  of 
action.  They  are  in  no  sense  object-objects,  but  are  preeminently 
subject-objects.  As  objects,  they  are  distinguished  from  the  acts 
of  the  mind  which  apprehend  them :  as  subject-objects,  they  are 
created  by  that  very  mind,  and  exist  only  for  that  mind.  As 
represented  subject-objects,  they  always  indicate  another  reality, 
whether  spiritual  or  mental. 

But  though  the  object  of  the  representative  power  is  a  mental 
object,  it  is  an  individual  object.  By  this  characteristic  it  is  distin- 
guished from  a  thought-object,  or  an  object  of  the  intelligence. 
Thought-objects  are  both- mental  objects  and  subject  objects,  and, 
in  an  important  sense,  representative-objects :  but  they  are  also 
generalized  objects  or  uni  versals.  Objects  of  representation  are  like 
them  in  that  they  are  purely  mental  objects,  yet  are  unlike  them 
in  being  individual.  Whether  we  recall  these  objects,  or  create 
them — whether  we  copy,  as  exactly  as  we  can,  from  an  original 
in  nature,  or  create  constructions  the  most  fantastic,  grotesque,  or 


§  137,    REPRESENTATIVE  POWER  DEFINED  AND  EXPLAINED.    209 

unnatural,  they  are  all  individual.  Falstaff,  Hamlet,  Ivanhoe, 
Jeannie  Deans,  Don  Quixote,  Tarn  O'Shauter,  the  Eden  of 
Milton,  the  Faery  Land  of  Spenser,  were  all  individual  beings  in 
the  imagination  that  originated,  and  are  such  in  the  imagination 
that  reconstructs  them  as  delineated  by  their  originators. 
§  137.  The  presented  object  was  known  bv  the 

,.,..,.  „       These  object* 

mind  not  only  as  a  being,  but  in  its  relations,  as  of    involve  reia- 

.  .  77.  7      tions. 

diversity,  space,  time,  etc. ;  so  the  object  as  represented, 
may  be  known  again  in  all  these  relations,  with  all  those  in  addi- 
tion which  are  implied  in  its  being  represented.  It  should  be 
remembered,  however,  that  a  relation  as  such — i.  e.,  a  relation  as 
separate  from  an  object — as  it  cannot  be  apprehended  by  sense- 
perception  or  consciousness,  so  it  cannot  be  recalled  by  represen- 
tation. A  relation,  as  such,  cannot  become  an  image  to  the  rep- 
resentative power,  but  the  object  in  its  relations  can  be  imaged. 

The  representative  power,  not  only  by  its  representative  act 
recalls  the  object  in  the  relations  in  which  it  was  originally 
known,  but  the  existence  and  exercise  of  this  power  involves  rela- 
tions that  are  peculiar  to  itself.  Thus,  in  recalling  a  tree  or  a 
horse  previously  perceived,  or  a  mental  act  of  knowledge  or  state 
of  feeling,  I  not  only  bring  back  the  tree  or  horse  as  extended 
and  external,  and  the  psychical  state  as  subjective  and  in  time, 
but,  in  recalling  it,  I  must  know  it  as  a  subject-object,  and  as 
having  been  previously  perceived  or  experienced  by  myself.  These 
relations  are  necessary  and  peculiar  to  the  representative  power. 

For  the  objects  of  this  power  we  have  no  appropriate  technical 
name.  The  words  image  and  picture  might  be  properly  applied 
to  the  represented  percepts  of  vision  ;  but  to  spe  ik  of  the  image 
of  a  sound,  smell,  or  touch,  would  be  incongruous,  if  not 
offensive.  Still  less  tolerable  would  it  be  to  speak  of  the  image 
of  an  act  of  knowledge  or  feeling.  Conception  cannot  be  ac- 
cepted, as  was  proposed  by  Stewart,  for  it  is  too  frequently 
applied  to  other  and  very  different  objects.  Idea  would  be  more 
significant,  if  it  could  be  forced  back  to  its  original  and  etymo- 
logical import ;  but  idea  has,  since  the  time  of  Locke,  been 
compelled  to  do  all  manner  of  service.  In  the  earlier  days  of 
the  English  language  the  representative  power  was  called  imagi- 
nation, or  phantasy,  and  images  and  phantasms  were  appropriately 
and  literally  applied  to  its  objects. 


210  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  139. 

§  138.  The  conditions  and  laws  of  the  representing 
power  should  next  be  considered.  The  mind,  in 
representation,  as  in  the  exercise  of  all  its  powers, 
acts  under  limitations  and  according  to  laws.  In 
representation,  man  does  not,  like  the  great  Originator,  create 
by  his  own  fiat,  his  world  of  mental  objects.  What  he  reproduces 
or  constructs  anew,  is  in  some  way  dependent  upon  what  he 
has  previously  experienced.  Not  only  must  every  thing  which  is 
represented  be  reproduced  from,  or  by  the  means  of  some 
past  experience,  but  what  is  represented  at  any  moment  depends 
upon  what  was  present  the  instant  before. 

The  fact  that  one  object  or  image  brings  up  another  to  the 
mind,  is  called  the  association  of  ideas.  The  conditions  or  laws 
under  which  the  mind  recalls  one  object  by  means  of  another, 
are  usually  called  the  laws  of  association.  The  term  is  open  to 
exception,  because  both  percepts  and  experiences  are  connected 
with  images,  as  truly  as  images  (or  ideas)  with  images.  The 
phrase  is,  however,  too  firmly  established  in  general  acceptance 
and  use  to  be  set  aside. 

§  139.  The  representative  power,  though  marked 
tion  divided  "  by  common  characteristics  and  obeying  common 
rieties.vol<  "  laws,  is  divided  into  several  varieties,  or  species. 
These  are  distinguished  by  the  completeness  or  in- 
completeness of  the  pictures  which  they  make  of  the  objects 
once  presented ;  by  the  fidelity  with  which  they  adhere  to,  or  the 
liberty  with  which  they  deviate  from  their  originals;  by  the 
laws  of  association  which  predominate  in  each  variety;  and  by 
the  ends  for  which  the  power  is  exercised,  and  the  uses  to  which 
it  is  applied. 

The  most  perfect  exemplification  of  the  exercise  of  the  repre- 
sentative power  is  an  act  of  perfect  memory.  Such  an  act  is 
always  complex,  involving  the  object,  the  action,  and  the  agent, 
united  by  their  mutual  relations  into  one  indivisible  state.  If 
the  object  is  material,  it  involves  certain  relations  of  space ;  the 
action,  being  one  of  a  continuous  series,  involves  relations  of 
time ;  the  agent,  being  the  body  and  soul  united,  must  exist  in 
every  act  under  relations  of  both  space  and  time.  When  a 
single  act  of  presentative  knowledge  is  recalled  in  all  these 
elements  of  object  and  relation,  the  representation  is  complete, 


§  139.    REPRESENTATIVE  POWER  DEFINED  AND  EXPLAINED.    211 

and  the  act  is  an  act  of  perfect  memory.  For  example,  yes- 
terday I  took  a  walk  to  the  top  of  a  neighboring  eminence. 
To-day  I  recall  distinctly  the  landscape  which  I  saw,  in  its 
minutest  features — re-creating,  as  I  do,  a  distinct  and  vivid 
picture  of  the  scene ;  and  not  only  of  the  scene,  but  of  myself  as 
beholding  it,  with  the  actions  before  and  after,  with  my  feelings 
also  in  viewing  it,  and  the  very  accidents  of  the  place  where  I  sat 
or  stood  during  the  view.  This  is  an  act  of  perfect  memory ; 
it  includes  every  element  of  the  original. 

As  time  goes  on,  it  is  possible  that  one  or  another  of  these  ele- 
ments should  be  recalled  less  distinctly,  or  should  be  omitted 
altogether.  It  is  possible  that  I  should  be  able  to  bring  back  the 
landscape  only  as  an  object,  and  be  certain,  as  I  see  or  think 
of  it,  only  that  I  once  saw  it  before ;  but  how  or  when,  or  with 
what  feelings  or  from  what  point,  I  do  not  recall.  Or  possibly 
the  object  may  be  lost,  and  the  subjective  feelings  may  alone  be 
revived  and  recognized  as  having  been  before  experienced.  Re- 
lations of  time  and  accessories  of  place  may  both  be  lost.  Thus, 
when  I  see  the  face  of  a  person  in  a  crowd,  I  know  that  I  have 
seen  it  before ;  but  when,  or  where,  or  with  what  feelings  I  can- 
not recall.  I  remember  a  familiar  passage  of  prose  or  poetry ;  I 
know  that  I  have  read  or  heard  it ;  but  when,  or  with  what 
feelings  or  attendant  circumstances,  I  cannot  tell.  All  these  are 
acts  of  what  may  be  called  imperfect  memory. 

But  memory,  whether  perfect  or  imperfect,  is  clearly  distin- 
guishable from  phantasy,  or  the  imaging  power.  This  is  repre- 
sentation without  the  recognition  that  the  objects  recalled  have 
ever  been  perceived  or  experienced  before.  Examples  of  this 
are  such  as  the  following :  I  look  distinctly  at  the  front  of  a 
dwelling,  the  form  of  a  horse,  or  the  outline  of  a  tree,  each  of 
which  I  wish  to  retain  and  make  wholly  my  own.  I  close  my 
eyes  and  picture  each  distinctly  to  my  mind.  The  undivided 
force  of  my  attention  is  expended  upon  the  object,  and  so  suc- 
cessfully, that  it  becomes  a  permanent  possession  as  an  object, 
with  few  or  no  accessories  of  either  place  or  time.  In  all  cases  of 
disturbed  fancy,  often  called  phantasy,  visions  of  objects  seen 
before,  but  not  remembered  or  recognized,  throng  in  upon  the 
soul.  There  may  be  no  recognition,  no  knowledge  that  the  object 
is  familiar  or  has  been  seen  or  felt  before.  These  acts  are  more 


212  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  139. 

likely  to  occur  in  those  conditions  of  the  soul  in  which  the  action 
of  the  reason  is  nearly  suspended,  or  permanently  set  aside,  as  in 
reverie,  dreaming,  monomania,  and  partial  or  complete  insanity. 
But  the  mind  can  do  more  than  simply  represent  the  past  with 
greater  or  less  perfection,  with  or  without  the  act  of  recognition. 
It  can  recombine  or  construct  anew  the  materials  which  the  past 
furnishes  for  it  to  work  with  or  upon.  In  such  acts  it  becomes 
the  creative  imagination.  Of  imagination  as  thus  denned,  there 
are  several  forms  or  varieties. 

1.  The  mind  may  neglect  or  leave  out  of  view  all  things   ex- 
isting in  space,  and  all  events  occurring  in  time,  and  form  to 
itself  pictures  of  void  space,  and  of  time  more  or  less  extended 
or   limited.     Within   these   voids   it  can   construct  geometrical 
figures,  and  arrange  series  of  numbered  objects,  and  thus  provide 
for  itself  the  materials  of  mathematical  science.      This  is  the 
mathematical  imagination. 

2.  It  can  separate  and  unite  the  parts  and  attributes  of  objects 
and  existences,  both  spiritual  and  material,  in  divisions  and  com- 
binations which  never  actually  occur,  but  are  grotesque  and  irra- 
tional.    These  separations  and  unions  mny  be  made  in  obedience 
only  to   the   more   obvious  and   the   lower  laws  of  association. 
Thus,  the  chimney  of  a  house  can  be  set  upon  the  hump  of  a 
camel,  and  the  ears  or  head  of  a  donkey  upon  the  body  of  a 
man.    .Or  horses  may  be  colored  red  or  yellow.    This  is  phantasy 
proper ;  the  products  of  which  are  simply  grotesque,  or  as  we  say, 
fantastic. 

3.  Objects  may  be  recalled  in  wholes  or  in  parts,  and  recom- 
bined  and  reconstructed  under  the  obvious  and  more  natural  laws 
of  association,  for  the  ends  of  wit,  humor,  or  amusement.     This 
is  fancy  proper,  which,  as  exemplified  in  literature  and  some  of 
the  fine  arts  has  been  thus  distiuguished  from  the  higher  imagina- 
tion. 

4.  When  the  higher  objects  of  nature  and  spirit  are  recalled, 
recombined,  and  created,  with  the  aid  of  the  nobler  laws  of  asso- 
ciation, for  the  higher  ends  of  ideal  elevation  and  improvement — 
when  the  more  elevated  feelings  are  addressed  and  excited,  and 
the  nobler  capacities  of  man  are  called  into  action,  then  the 
power  becomes  poetic  imagination.     The  sphere  of  this  power  is 
not  poetry  alone,  but  eloquence,  music,  painting,  sculpture,  archi- 


§  140.    REPRESENTATIVE  POWER  DEFINED  AND  EXPLAINED.    213 

tecture,  and  landscape  gardening ;  inasmuch  as  all  afford  oppor- 
tunities for  these  higher  sentiments  and  suggestions.  This  is 
imagination  as  contrasted  with  fancy. 

5.  When  the  combinations  and  creations  are  effected  for  the 
purposes  of  research,  invention,  and  instruction,  and  under  lawu 
of  association  which  are  grounded  on  scientific  or  thought-rela- 
tions, and  directed  to  some  definite  result  or  product,  we  have 
the  philosophic  imagination. 

\Vhen  the  philosophic  or  the  poetic  imagination  are  employed 
in  the  service  of  ethical  improvement  and  religious  incitement, 
they  constitute  an  important  .element  in  ethical  ideality  and 
religious  faith. 

§  140.  The  interest  and  the  importance  of  the  re- 
presentative power  is  enforced  by  the  following  con-  impoSice'^of 

.  ,  .  the  representa- 

siderations :  tive  power. 

1.  First  of  all,  the  exercise  of  this  power  ministers 
pleasure  of  a  high  order  and  in  great  variety,  which  is  indepen- 
dent of  the  accidents  of  fortune  and  circumstances.      Whether 
these  acts  are  exercised  by  the  infant  in  its  endless  combinations 
of  play  and  sport,  as  in  the  simple  story  which  it  constructs  out  of 
two  or  three  incidents,  or  whether  they  are  employed  by  the 
novelist  or  poet  in  the  fiction  on  which  he  lavishes  all  the  re- 
sources of  culture,  the  pleasure  of  creating  is  the  same. 

2.  Man  often  flies  to  the  unreal  world  of  the  fancy,  to  find  rest 
and  relief  from  the  highly- wrought  excitements  of  the  too  earnest 
and  engrossing  real  world.     Ideal  objects  and  conditions  furnish 
associations  more  pleasing  and  emotions  more  satisfying  than  any 
which  the  experience  of  reality  can  awaken.     The  sick   man 
forgets  for  a  brief  moment  his  actual  weariness  and  pain  in  the 
scenes  of  health  and  action  which  he  imagines.     The  prisoner  is 
enlarged  from  his  cell.     The  oppressed  forgets  his  wrong.     The 
homeless  dwells  under  the  shelter  of  his  own  roof. 

3.  This  power  is  the  necessary  condition  of  the  higher  functions 
of  the  intellect,  and  of  every  description  of  intellectual  achieve- 
ment and  progress.     The  truth  is  common-place,  that  memory  is 
the  servant  of  thought  and  the  conservator  of  our  acquisitions. 
It  was  not   in    idle   fancy  that  Mnemosyne   was  called  by  the 
ancients  the  mother  of  the  Muses.     Were  the  mind  limited  to 
the  objects  and  the  activities  of  the  present,  it  could' make  little 


214  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  140- 

progress  of  any  kind.  Thought  would  be  almost  impossible. 
Generalization,  by  which  many  objects  are  viewed  as  one,  would 
be  restricted  to  the  few  present  objects  that  could  be  brought 
within  the  range  of  a  single  act  of  comparison.  When  such  an  act 
was  finished,  its  product  would  be  lost  forever.  It  could  never  be 
reapplied  to  a  new  object,  or  be  enlarged  in  its  sphere.  The  new 
individual  objects  of  sense  and  of  consciousness  would  also  be 
isolated.  They  could  not  even  be  named,  for  each  would  stand 
apart  in  the  loneliness  of  its  own  individuality.  Language 
would  be  impossible. 

The  induction  of  principles  and  of  laws  would  be  excluded, 
for,  however  surely  the  mind  might  infer  that  a  common  law 
controlled  the  objects  perceived  at  a  single  gaze,  neither  the 
objects  nor  the  principles  learned  through  them,  could  present 
themselves  a  second  time,  the  one  to  be  exemplified  or  the  other 
to  be  explained.  There  could  be  neither  invention  nor  discovery. 
Even  in  mathematical  science  both  would  be  impossible.  The 
creations  of  art  would  be  excluded.  The  inventor  in  mechanics, 
the  composer  in  poetry  or  music,  the  thinker  in  morals,  philosophy, 
and  letters,  the  deviser  of  beneficent  schemes  for  human  well- 
being,  are  each  and  all  dependent  on  the  resources  of  the  imagi- 
nation for  every  possible  conjunction  of  cause  and  effect,  of 
tendency  and  result.  No  more  manifest  or  more  serious  error 
can  be  committed,  than  for  the  philosopher  to  decry  the  imagina- 
tion as  injurious  to,  or  inconsistent  with,  eminent  scientific  activity 
and  achievement. 

The  practical  uses  of  the  imagination  are  not  to  be  overlooked. 
It  creates  ideals  of  what  we  might  be  and  do,  which  'are  far 
higher  and  nobler  than  any  thing  which  we  are,  or  which  we 
perform.  It  lifts  us  above  ourselves  and  the  examples  we  observe 
in  real  life,  furnishing  loftier  standards  toward  which  we  may 
aspire.  A  pure  and  elevated  imagination  is  in  many  ways  allied 
to  a  noble  ethical  nature,  and  favors  an  ardent  and  a  sustained 
religious  faith. 


§  143.  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  OBJECT.  215 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE   REPRESENTATIVE  OBJECT — ITS   NATURE  AND   IMPORTANCE. 

§  141.  The  product  of  the  representative  power, 
or  the  object  which  the  mind  creates  and  apprehends  Of 
in  memory  and  imagination,  has  been  the  occasion  of 
much  confusion  of  thought,  and  not  a  little  contro- 
versy. Scarcely  any  single  topic  has  been  more  vexed  in  ancient 
or  mediaeval  philosophy,  than  the  nature  of  representative 
images.  In  the  discussion  of  this  topic,  three  topics  or  heads  of 
inquiry  present  themselves :  I.-  The  nature  and  mode  of  existence 
of  the  object  which  the  mind  remembers  and  imagines.  II.  Its 
relation  to  the  original  from  which  it  is  derived  and  to  which  it  is 
referred.  III.  The  special  service  which  it  renders  in  thought  and 
action. 

I.   The  nature  and  mode  of  existence  of  the  representative  object. 

§  142.  These  objects  or  products,  as  has  already 
been  stated  (§  136),  are  psychical  existences.     They  chiLfobject.3' 
exist  in  and  for  the  soul  only.     They  are  at  once  the 
products  of  the  mind  which  brings  them  into  being,  and  objects 
for  the  same  mind  to  cognize  or  contemplate.     Whether  they 
are  transcribed  from  real  beings  and  real  acts,  or  whether  they 
are  created  out  of  the  materials  or  upon  suggestions  which  real 
objects    furnish,   they   are  in   all   cases   purely   psychical    and 
spiritual.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  the  original  is  material, 
or  spiritual ;  the  idea  or  image  of  each  is  simply  psychical. 

§  143.  The  mental  object  is  as  transient  and 
evanescent  as  the  act  by  which  it  is  brought  into  sient 1S  a  * S 
being.  In  this  respect  the  mental  object  is  strikingly  jeer*11™'  °l~ 
contrasted  with  objects  that  are  real.  The  acts  by  which  we 
know  both  psychical  and  actual  objects,  are  for  a  moment. 
They  cease  to  be  at  the  instant  in  which  they  begin.  So  is  it 
with  the  psychical  as  contrasted  with  the  real  object.  The  real 
object  alone  is  fixed  and  permanent.  To  it  we  can  come  and  from 
it  we  can  go,  and  find  it  still  the  same.  But  the  psychical  trans- 
cript or  creation  is  as  short-lived  and  evanescent  as  the  act  by 
which  we  behold  it. 


216  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  144. 

These  psychical  objects  of  the  representative  power  are  to  be 
distinguished  from  those  spectra  or  hallucinations  which  result 
from  an  abnormal  or  morbid  condition  of  the  sensoriurn  or  the 
nervous  organism.  The  first  are  psychical,  the  second  are  psycho- 
physical.  The  first  are  spiritual  in  their  nature,  the  second  are 
dependent  upon  the  soul  as  connected  with  the  sensoriurn.  The 
hallucinations  or  spectra,  are  intimately  related  to  those  sub- 
jective sensations,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  are  caused  by  any 
excitement  of  the  sensorium  by  means  of  subjective  agencies  as 
distinguished  from  material  objects  (cf.  §  78).  They  are  not 
properly  representative  images  or  ideas,  which  are  purely  psy- 
chical creations  and  objects,  being  created  by  a  psychical  power 
under  psychical  conditions,  and  having  only  a  psychical  ex- 
istence. 

it  is  an  intei-  5  144.  These  representative  objects  are  no!,  only 
lectuai  object.  pgychical,  but  they  are  intellectual  objects.  It  has 
been  held  by  some  that  when  memory  recalls  past  psychical  expe- 
riences of  feeling  and  of  will  it  recalls  the  experiences  themselves, 
and  not  our  ideas  of  them.  "  It  is  not  ideas,  notions,  cogni- 
tions only,  but  feelings  and  conations,  which  are  held  fast,  and 
which  can,  therefore,  be  again  awakened:"  "Memory  does  not 
belong  alone  to  the  cognitive  faculties,  but  the  law  extends  in  like 
manner  over  all  the  three  primary  classes  of  the  mental  phenom- 
ena." (Ham.  Met,  Lee.  xxx).  This  opinion  of  H.  Schmid  is  ap* 
parently  sanctioned  by  Hamilton.  It  is  a  logical  inference  from 
one  of  the  doctrines  which  he  sesms  to  advance  concerning  con- 
sciousness. But  if  consciousness  is  an  act  of  knowledge,  and  know- 
ledge, when  matured,  gives,  as  its  products,  intellectual  objects 
which  we  can  recall ;  then,  as  when  we  feel  we  know  that  we 
feel,  so,  when  we  remember  that  we  have  felt,  we  remember  our 
past  feeling  as  an  object  known — i.  e.,  we  recall  our  idea  of  it 
(§  56).  The  pleasure  which  I  enjoy  is  not  the  original  pleasure 
revived,  but  a  fresh  pleasure  from  the  object  recalled  by  the 
intellect,  and  perhaps  a  reflex  pleasure  from  the  fact  that  it 
is  revived.  But  whatever  it  be  which  excites  the  pleasure, 
whether  the  exciting  object  or  the  pleasure  excited,  it  is  the 
object,  or  the  pleasure  as  remembered — that  is,  it  is  an  intellectual 
object  which  it  apprehended  by  the  mind.  The  representative 
object  is  not  only  a  psychical,  but  it  is  also  an  intellectual  object. 


§  146.  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  OBJECT.  217 

II.   The  relation  of  the  representative  idea  to  its  original. 
§  145.  The  relation  which  the  represented  object 

1     i  i      ,        ,1  '  •,  ,     ,      ,  .       ,     .  .  .        The  relation  can 

holds  to  the  real  or  presented  object,  is  sui  generis,    be  compared  to 
and  can  neither  be  resolved  into,  nor  explained  by 
any  other.     It  is  important  to  distinguish  it  from  those  relations 
with  which  it  is  so  often  confounded,  and  thus  to  clear  away 
many  errors  into  which  philosophy  has  often  been  betrayed. 
§  146.   In  doing  so,  we  observe:    (1.)    That  the 

„  ,  ,  .    ,  ,  .  Representative 

ideas  which  we  acquire  by  consciousness  or  perception  ideas  of  objects 
cannot  possibly  resemble  their  originals,  either  as  parts  ness  aud  sense- 
to  parts  or  as  wholes  to  wholes.  Neither  the  single  nT?Pres?mbie 
features  nor  the  combined  wholes  of  any  mental  t] 
transcripts  can  by  any  possibility  resemble  the  single  features  or 
united  wholes  of  any  material  or  spiritual  being  or  act.  A 
mental  object  is  wholly  incapable  of  being  confronted  or  com- 
pared with  an  existing  reality.  One  material  thing  can  be  like 
another  material  thing  as  a  whole  and  as  a  part ;  one  spiritual 
being,  or  a  single  spiritual  act,  can  be  like  another  spiritual  being 
or  act;  one* tree  can  be  like  another  tree;  one  mental  state  can 
be  like  another  ;  one  act  of  perception  can  be  like  another  act  ; 
but  the  mental  image  of  a  tree  cannot  be  like  a  tree,  nor  can  the 
mental  remembrance  of  a  mental  experience  resemble  or  be  like 
the  original  act  or  state. 

It  is  true,  one  of  these  may  be  loosely  and  vaguely  said  to 
resemble  or  be  like  the  other ;  but  that  this  language  is  only 
employed  in  the  way  of  analogy,  is  evident  from  the  contradic- 
tions and  absurdities  into  which  -those  philosophers  have  involved 
themselves  who  have  understood  it  literally. 

We  have  seen  (§  129)  to  what  contradictory  and  impossible 
conclusions  Locke's  definitions  of  knowledge,  as  the  discernment 
of  a  conformity  or  resemblance  of  ideas  with  their  objects,  ex- 
posed himself,  and  actually  conducted  Berkeley  and  Hume. 

The  representative  idea  is  not  known  to  consciousness  as  resem- 
bling any  original. 

We  observe  still  further  :  (2.)  When  we  remember  or  recognize 
objects  which  we  have  previously  known,  we  do  not  discern  any 
proper  resemblance  between  the  original  and  its  mental  tran- 
script. For  example,  we  look  upon  an  object,  as  a  house,  a  tree, 
a  portrait,  the  page  of  a  book  ;  or  we  hear  a  sound,  we  perform 
10 


218  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  14ft 

some  mental  act,  or  experience  some  feeling ;  and  when  the 
object  is  removed,  we  recall  it  in  our  memory.  It  were  simply 
absurd  to  say  that  we  recall  the  material  object  by  its  mental 
object,  or  that  we  remember  the  object  by  its  likeness  to  the 
mental  picture  which  we  revive  to  our  minds.  A  discerned  re- 
semblance supposes  two  objects  between  which  the  likeness  is 
seen ;  but  in  an  act  of  simple  memory  it  is  plain  that  only  one 
object  is  before  the  mind.  It  is  therefore  clearly  impossible  that 
any  resemblance  should  be  discerned;  for  that  two  objects 
would  be  necessarily  required.  In  recalling  or  remembering  a 
past  object,  event,  or  mental  experience,  we  simply  picture  it  as 
having  been  before  discerned  or  experienced  in  fact,  and  we  do 
this  by  a  direct  act  of  knowledge. 

When  it  is  said  that  this  mental  image  is  transcribed  from  the 
original,  or  represents  it,  the  language  describes  an  act  and 
objects  which  are  emphatically  sui  generis,  and  incomparable  with 
any  other. 

The  relation  of  these  mental  transcripts  to  their  originals  can 
only  be  understood  by  considering  the  acts  of  the  mind  by  which 
we  acquire  and  recall  them.  The  nature  of  mental  products  can 
only  be  understood  by  the  mental  acts  which  give  them  birth. 
To  understand  the  relation  of  a  transcript  to  its  original,  we 
must  consider  the  nature  of  the  act  by  which  we  acquire  it,  as 
related  to  the  act  by  which  we  recall  and  revive  the  same. 

To  bring  these  acts  together,  in  order  to  compare  them,  let 
them  be  employed  alternately  upon  the  same  object.  As  the  eye 
opens  and  shuts  upon  the  landscape  seen  and  the  landscape 
imaged,  the  real  landscape  is  alternately  remembered  and 
perceived.  When  the  eye  is  shut,  it  is  remembered  as  having  been 
seen.  When  it  is  recognized,  it  is  recognized  as  the  same  that 
we  saw  before,  and  which  we  had  remembered  during  the  in- 
terval ;  but  in  neither  case  is  any  resemblance  discerned.  It  is 
involved  in  the  act  of  memory,  that  the  object  perceived  should 
be  recreated  by  the  mind  and  recalled  as  real,  and  also  that, 
when  the  object  is  remembered,  it  should  be  recognized  as  the 
Bame  which  was  perceived.  Moreover,  there  is  also  involved  the 
knowledge  that  the  object  as  perceived  was  real,  and  that  the  ol> 
ject  as  reproduced  in  memory  is  mental  only. 


§  147.  THE   REPRESENTATIVE   OBJECT.  219 


§  147.  The  nature  of  any  product  or  object  is  de-    Positive  ch* 

J    f  racteristics  of 

termmed  by  the  mind  s  capacity  to  originate  it  ;  and  mental  Pio 
the  authority  of  the  mind  to  trust  it  and  accept  the 
objects  which  its  own  activities  involve,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  it  finds  itself,  so  to  speak,  spontaneously  exercising  the 
power.  Concerning  this  peculiar  object  and  its  relation  to  its 
original,  we  affirm  positively:  —  (1.)  The  mental  picture  affects  ths 
sensibilities  less  powerfully  than  the  perception  or  experience  of 
the  reality.  By  the  supposition,  if  the  original  be  a  sense  or 
material  object,  it  must  move  or  excite  the  senses;  and  this  class 
of  experiences  are  in  their  essential  nature  absorbing  and  vivid. 
If  the  experience  be  of  a  mental  act  or  state,  no  recollection  or 
transcript  can  match  the  reality  in  its  power  to  interest  and 
excite  the  soul. 

Different  persons  differ  greatly  in  the  power  vividly  to  repro- 
duce and  make  real  the  past,  and  as  greatly  in  the  capacity  to 
be  moved  by  it  in  their  sensibilities.  Some  persons  cannot 
revive  a  scene  of  pleasure  or  pain  without  ecstasy  or  horror  ;  the 
very  picture  or  remembrance  of  any  thing  which  they  have  en- 
joyed or  suffered  seems  to  revive  much  of  the  delight  or  pain 
which  the  original  experience  occasioned.  But  even  the  sensi- 
bility of  such  persons  to  the  pictures  which  their  memory  re- 
vives, is  usually  in  direct  ratio  to  their  susceptibility  to  the  pre- 
sent and  the  real.  That  the  real  object  excites  more  feeling  than 
the  same  object  remembered,  is  assented  to  by  common  ex- 
perience and  confirmed  by  universal  testimony. 

Segnins  irritant  animoa  demixsa  per  anrem 
Quam  qnse  stint  ociifis  tubjecta  jidelibttr,  et  qnte 
Ipse  sibi  tradit  spectator.  —  HOR.  De.  Art.  Poet. 

0,  who  can  hold  a  fire  in  his  hand, 

By  thinking  on  the  frosty  Caucasus  ? 

Or  cloy  the  hungry  edge  of  appetite, 

By  bare  imagination  of  a  feast?—  SHAKSPEARE,  Rich.  IL 

(2.)  The  mental  picture  consists  of  fewer  elements  than  the 
original.  It  is  but  a  scanty  outline,  as  contrasted  with  its 
fullness—  a  skeleton  as  compared  with  its  roundness  and  life.  • 
We  look  at  a  real  tree,  and  in  the  background  there  is  the  con- 
fused or  vague  perception  of  the  as  yet  undistinguished  mass  of 
form  and  color,  while  from  it  is  projected  in  "bold  relief  a  few  promi- 


220  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §147, 

nent  parts  that  attract  and  hold  the  attention.  If  we  test  by 
the  reality  the  best  picture  that  we  can  frame  in  the  fancy,  we 
are  surprised  at  the  poverty  of  the  one  and  the  richness  of  the 
other. 

(3.)  The  mental  picture  is  recalled  in  parts  under  the  laws  by 
which  one  suggests  another,  and  is  constructed  with  comparative 
slowoess.  The  reality  displays  its  wealth  of  detail  as  coexistent 
and  at  a  single  view.  Or,  if  we  study  its  details  with  attentive  ana- 
lysis, we  do  this  with  inconceivable  rapidity,  under  the  guidance 
and  suggestion  of  the  object  itself.  The  object,  when  re-created 
in  memory,  is  re-created  in  the  several  parts  of  which  it  is  com- 
posed :  if  a  material  object,  in  the  several  sense-percepts  which 
make  it  a  thing  or  whole.  If  it  is  extended  in  space,  or  mani- 
fold or  irregular  in  outline,  the  parts  of  the  surface  and  outline 
must  be  recovered  one  by  one,  under  the  laws  of  association,  and 
by  acts  that  are  successive  to  one  another  in  time. 

To  illustrate  these  contrasted  features,  we  need  select  but  a 
single  example.  It  is  a  precipice  up  which  we  gaze.  First  it  im- 
presses us  as  a  whole,  diversified  by  its  varied  features.  Foremost 
are  the  broad  faces  of  perpendicular  or  impending  rock.  These 
are  buttressed  by  slopes  strewn  with  accumulated  fragments. 
Here  and  there  are  bushy  crags  and  scattered  boulders.  The 
whole  cuts  against  the  sky  with  a  notched  outline,  fringed  here 
and  there  with  nodding  herbage,  or  broken  by  some  daring  tree, 
that,  stayed  upon  its  uncertain  footing,  reaches  out  and  up  toward 
heaven.  If  all  this  is  apprehended  by  sense-perception,  the 
quick  eye  first  surveys  the  whole  with  a  rapid  sweep,  then  runs 
hither  and  thither,  as  it  is  caught  and  led  by  some  salient  feature, 
the  rock  itself  bringing  out  new  material  faster  than  the  mind 
can  appropriate  it,  impressing  the  feelings  with  new  emotions 
of  wonder  the  longer  we  strive  to  master  its  wealth. 

Let  us  seek  to  image  that  rock  in  the  mind,  at  evening,  when 
we  are  just  returned  from  a  fresh  gaze  upon  its  front.  In  place 
of  the  exhaustless  confusion  of  the  vaguely-seen  whole  to  guide 
and  excite  the  eye,  there  is  slowly  revived  the  scanty  frame- 
work of  the  few  parts  which  can  be  recalled  by  the  mind.  These 
parts  are  recovered  one  by  one,  as  the  mind  resting  upon  what 
is  already  present  brings  back  in  fragments,  and  by  repeated 
efforts,  that  which  each  present  object  suggests.  However  excitinp 


§  148.  THE    REPRESENTATIVE    OBJECT.  221 

the  effort  to  recall  and  reconstruct,  and  however  pleasing  the 
picture  that  is  recalled,  the  impressiveness  and  exciting  power  of 
the  reality  are  wholly  wanting. 

The  objects  which  the  creative  fancy  or  imagination  in  any  way 
combines  or  constructs  do  not  differ  greatly  from  those  which 
the  memory  transcribes,  in  their  relation  to  the  real  existences  of 
matter  or  spirit.  The  only  material  difference  between  the  two 
can  be  expressed  in  a  word — the  one  represents  real,  the  other 
possible  existences :  the  originals  of  the  one  in  fact  exist,  and 
have  in  fact  been  perceived  or  experienced ;  realities  correspond- 
ing to  the  other  might  exist.  In  every  other  respect  the  two 
classes  of  objects  coincide. 

III.   TJie  usefulness  of  ideas  in  thought  and  action. 
§  148.  The  special  service  of  the  products  of  the 

1  In  thought,  we 

representative  power  for  thought  and  action  remain  prefer  ideas  to 
to  be  considered.  It  has  already  been  observed 
(§  §  46,  56),  that  the  process  of  perception,  or  consciousness,  is 
normal  and  complete  when  it  results  in  an  idea  or  image — i.  e., 
when  a  transcript  of  the  individual  object  is  prepared  for  future 
recall.  The  usefulness  of  these  acquired  facts  and  of  these 
ideas  of  possibilities  of  nature  will  be  accepted  by  every  one. 
That  they  are  absolutely  indispensable  to  secure  the  past,  and  to 
give  range  and  reach  to  invention,  is  obvious  to  every  mind. 
But  it  is  not  clearly,  certainly  it  is  not  generally  acknowledged, 
that,  for  the  purposes  of  thought,  remembrances  are  often  better 
than  percepts,  and  that  the  pale  and  scanty  images  which  the 
mind  creates  are  often  superior  to  the  fresh  experiences  which  life 
presents.  We  often  even  prefer  to  employ  mental  images,  when 
we  might  avail  ourselves  of  actual  observations.  We  often  turn 
a  fact  into  a  mental  picture  or  recollection,  even  while  our  eyes, 
our  ear?,  and  our  attent  consciousness  seem  to  be  occupied  with  a 
present  reality. 

The  reason  is,  that  the  image,  (supposed  to  be  correct)  presents 
to  the  mind  fewer  elements  than  the  reality,  and  therefore  does 
not  distract,  but  aids  the  attention  in  the  activities  of  thought. 
Moreover,  the  elements  which  it  includes  are  usually  the  very 
elements  or  features  with  which  thought  concerns  itself.  For  this 
reason  recollection  often  guides  thinking,  and  aids  it  in  its  work. 


222  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT. 

When  we  change  our  perceptions  into  ideas,  or  ideate  our 
perceptions,  we  retain  only  what  we  attend  to ;  hence  the  image 
presents  fewer  points  or  elements  than  the  original.  We  are 
likely  to  attend  to  what  is  most  important,  especially  if  we  bring 
to  our  observations  an  eye  instructed  by  the  previous  training  of 
thought,  or  the  experiences  of  scientific  inquiry.  A  disciplined 
mind  will  of  necessity  direct  the  observations  of  things  to  those 
features  with  which  thought  is  concerned  ;  and  these  points  will 
remain  recorded  in  the  memory  for  thought  to  classify,  or  be 
recombined  in  the  imagination  for  thought  to  invent  and  to 
explain. 

In  a  certain  sense,  representation  abstracts  while  it  revives ;  as 
it  omits  much  of  what  it  perceives  or  feels,  and  retains  only 
what  it  cares  for. 

Hence,  in  observations  of  things  which  are  accompanied  with 
any  comparative  analysis  of  judgment,  we  close  and  open  the 
senses  by  alternate  acts.  We  close  the  sense,  that  we  may  with 
undistracted  thought  think  or  judge  of  the  image  which  it  gives. 
We  open  and  use  it  again,  that  we  may  correct  or  fix  the  image 
by  or  upon  which  we  think. 

§  149.  As  the  mind  widens  its  range  of  materials 

Icleis  especial-  .  . 

ly  useful  in  tor  thought,  and  rises  to  higher  generalizations,  its 
anTgeneraii-  images  of  things  will  need  to  consist  of  still  fewer 
features — viz.,  those  only  which  it  needs  to  use  in 
classification  or  reasoning.  So  far  as  it  brings  before  its  view 
concrete  realities  or  individual  examples,  these  need  only  contain 
those  parts  or  elements  which  come  into  use  in  generalization, 
induction,  or  argument.  The  plastic  power  of  representation 
here  comes  into  play,  which  can  readily  omit  all  that  is  not 
necessary  to  be  considered  and  can  easily  supply  every  thing  that 
illustration  or  discovery  may  need. 

Representation  can  go  so  far  in  its  abstractions  as  to  leave  but 
a  meagre  outline,  a  mere  skeleton  of  a  concrete  thing  or  group 
of  objects.  Such  a  skeleton  has  been  called  a  schema.  Such  a 
schema  or  outline-image  has  been  held  not  only  to  be  the  ne- 
cessary condition  for  the  formation  and  use  of  concepts,  but  it 
has  been  also  contended  that  it  is  like  the  concept  in  being 
general  and  equally  applicable  to  every  individual  thing  to 
which  the  concept  can  be  referred.  For  example,  when  we  speak 


§  149.  THE    REPRESENTATIVE   OBJECT.  223 

or  think  of  such  terms  or  things  as  horse,  dog,  or  flower,  it  is 
urged  that  the  mind  frames  a  schema,  or  outline-image  of  the 
form  or  other  relations  of  each  subject,  which  is  equally  suitable 
to  every  individual  horse,  dog,  or  flower.  This  schema,  it  is  urged, 
differs  from  the  concept,  in  that  it  is  not  divided  or  severed  into 
constituent  elements,  each  one  of  which  is  regarded  as  an  attri- 
bute of  a  substance,  but  it  remains  as  an  extremely  abstracted 
whole,  which  may  be  applied  to  every  individual  horse,  dog,  or 
flower.  This  view  contradicts  the  doctrine  which  we.  have  laid 
down,  that  the  object  in  representation  is  always  individual,  and 
never  general.  The  image  of  a  horse  or  dog  need  not  be 
general  because  it  is  very  scanty  or  meagre  in  its  constituent 
elements,  having  to  do  only  with  a  few  that  are  characteristic, 
as  the  form,  the  head,  the  limbs,  etc. ;  but  so  far  as  the  object  is 
imaged  at  all  it  must  be  individual.  The  reason  why  it  seems  to 
be  general  is,  that  being  a  creation  of  the  imagination,  it  can 
readily  be  changed  by  addition  or  omission,  so  as  to  conform  to 
the  horse  or  dog  before  us.  It  is  more  exact  to  say  that  the 
schema  is  conformable  rather  than  general ;  i.  e.,  it  is  capable  of 
being  readily  adjusted  to  every  object  of  its  class,  and  hence  its 
preeminent  utility.  Whatever  form  or  features  the  individual 
image  may  take  which  we  happen  to  construct,  it  can  be  easily 
shaped  and  adjusted  to  the  individual  example  before  us. 

The  nature  of  the  outline  image,  or  schema,  and  its  relation  to 
the  concept,  will  be  still  further  considered  under  the  concept. 
(§  107.) 

We  observe,  however,  in  passing,  that  it  is  more  than  a  mere 
conceit  to  say,  that,  as  we  rise  from  perception  to  thought,  we  in- 
terpose the  image  or  idea  as  an  intermediate  object  which  is  less 
gross  and  entangling  than  matter,  and  yet  more  substantial,  de- 
finite, and  concrete  than  thought.  The  image  directs  and  aids 
the  concept,  standing,  as  it  does,  midway  between  it  and  the 
percept.  On  the  other  hand,  the  idea,  especially  when  directed 
by  thought,  reacts  upon  perception  itself,  making  it  more  intelli- 
gent and  productive,  as  it  directs  the  senses  to  what  features  it 
should  attend,  and  often  anticipates  what  they  will  find.  In  this 
way  aimless  efforts  are  spared,  fruitless  voyages  of  discovery  are 
avoided,  and  the  energies  of  the  mind  are  expended  upon  prey 
•luctive  objects. 


224  THE    HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  150. 

§  150.  Not  only  do  images  assist  in  perception  and 

Images  pre-  ° 

pare  fur  and      thought,  but  they  prepare  lor  and  so  prompt  to  action. 

aid  to  action.  i  •  '    i  •   i       /. 

if  we  recall  an  object  which  formerly  moved  us  to 
excited  feeling  and  impelled  us  to  prompt  and  energetic  action, 
the  thought  of  the  same  object  is  fitted  to  excite  us  again  in  a 
similar  manner,  in  real  or  mimic  activity,  in  body  and  in  soul. 
If  an  action  is  soon  to  be  performed — if  we  are  to  sling  a  stone, 
or  point  a  rifle,  or  throw  a  quoit,  the  image  of  the  act  and  object 
held  before  the  mind  brings  all  the  muscles  into  position,  and 
makes  ready  for  the  act  required,  the  instant  the  act  is  called  for. 
Hence,  in  any  discipline  for  feats  of  bodily  dexterity,  a  vivid 
and  concentrated  fancy,  a  strong  and  kindling  imagination,  are 
of  essential  service,  as  they  bring  the  powers  into  that  position 
which  effective  activity  requires.  The  same  is  true  of  discipline 
to  mental  exertion,  so  far  as  any  purely  spiritual  activity  de- 
pends on  the  distinct  conception  of  its  object.  The  thought  of 
an  enemy  to  be  assailed,  or  of  a  wrong  to  be  avenged,  knits  the 
muscles,  braces  the  limbs,  and  convulses  the  features.  The 
sensitive  idealist  is  convulsed  with  horror  at  the  pictures  which 
his  imagination  draws  of  the  scenes  of  cruelty  which  he  reads  of 
or  conceives.  He  acts  over,  in  fancy,  the  part  which  he  himbeif 
would  be  ready  to  take  in  any  depicted  scene. 

When  men  are  to  act  in  concert ;  as  to  row,  or  pull,  or  skout, 
in  unison,  or  to  repel  an  assault,  or  to  storm  a  battery,  or  ^  any 
way  to  use  their  united  strength,  their  imagination  rnast  be 
brought  into  active  service  in  anticipating  beforehand  the-  objects 
which  will  soon  present  themselves,  or  the  kind  of  activities  in 
which  they  are  to  engage.  The  ideal  is  far  better  than  the  real 
scene  for  the  purposes  of  discipline  and  anticipation.  The  real 
object  may  distract  and  bewilder  as  well  as  arouse  and  hold  the 
attention.  It  may  over-excite,  and  so  unman.  It  may  bring  up 
unexpected  objects,  as  well  as  those  which  are  looked  a*>d  hoped 
for.  The  reality,  as  compared  with  the  idea,  may  hmdt-r  action, 
as  it  hinders  thought.  While,  then,  the  idea  cannot  take  the 
place  of  the  reality,  and  discipline  by  means  of  the  idea  is  of 
little  avail  unless  it  actually  prepares  for  action,  it  is  essential  to 
such  preparation.  Nature  has  provided  for  this  discipline  by  the 
strong  impulse  which  she  awakens  toward  it :  she  secures  great 
deeds  by  first  awakening  grand  pictures  in  the  excite^  fancy. 


§  151.     THE  CONDITIONS  AND  LAWS  OF  REPRESENTATION.          225 


CHAPTER  IIL 

THE   CONDITIONS   AND     LAWS   OP    REPRESENTATION — THE  ASSO- 
CIATION  OF   IDEAS. 

§  151.  We  have  noticed  already  that  the  soul,  in 

Association    of  ..  -i-i   ..  «  .-,...-, 

ideas,  impor-  representation,  as  in  all  its  acts  or  functions,  is  limited 
tereTtofthe111"  to  fixed  conditions,  and  acts  according  to  established 
laws.  What  is  recalled  at  any  moment,  though  re- 
called by  the  soul's  proper  activity,  is  always  recalled  by  means 
of  the  cognitions  and  feelings  which  the  soul  possessed  the 
moment  previous.  The  general  fact  or  truth  that  ideas  are  rep- 
resented by  means  of  ideas  now  present,  is  usually  designated 
under  the  general  title  or  phrase ;  " the  association  of  ideas" 

The  term  suggestion  has,  by  some  writers,  been  preferred  to 
association.  They  prefer  to  say,  one  idea  suggests  another  idea, 
rather  than,  one  idea  is  associated  with  another.  This  preference 
is  partly  a  matter  of  taste  in  words,  and  in  part  is  grounded  on 
the  philosophical  theory  which  one  of  these  terms  is  supposed  to 
designate  better  than  the  other.  Some  object  to  the  phrase,  The 
suggestion  or  association  of  ideas,  because  ideas  are  not  the  only 
objects  or  elements  that  are  concerned ;  real  or  existing  objects 
or  phenomena  being  as  truly  capable  of  exciting  representations 
as  the  ideas  or  remembrances  of  things.  But,  the  phrase  is  too 
well  established  in  general  use  to  be  easily  set  aside,  even  though 
the  reasons  for  so  doing  were  vastly  stronger  than  they  are  found 
to  be  in  fact. 

To  seek  to  determine  what  are  the  conditions  and  laws  of  repre- 
sentation, is  to  propose  an  inquiry  to  which  we  are  impelled  by 
the  intrinsic  interest  and  even  mystery  with  which  the  power 
itself  and  its  actings  are  invested  to  all  thoughtful  minds.  Ham- 
ilton observes  (Met.,  Lee.  xxxi.),  that  "  the  scholastic  psychologists 
seem  to  have  regarded  the  succession  in  the  train  of  thought,  ory 
as  they  called  it,  the  excitation  of  the  species,  with  peculiar 
wonder,  as  one  of  the  most  inscrutable  mysteries  of  Nature." 
" The  younger  Scaliger  says:  'My  father  declared  that  of  the 
causes  of  three  things  in  particular  he  was  wholly  ignorant — of 

10* 


226  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  151. 

the  intervals  of  fevers,  of  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  sea,  and  of 
reminiscence/  "  "  The  excitation  of  species  is  declared  by  Poncius 
'  to  be  one  of  the  most  difficult  secrets  of  Nature  (ex  difficilioribus 
natures  areanis^f  and  Oviedo,  a  Jesuit  schoolman,  says,  '  Therein 
jies  the  very  greatest  mystery  of  all  philosophy  (maximum  totius 
philosophies  sacramentum).' "  This  impression  of  mystery  and  the 
wonder  which  it  excites  are  not  at  all  surprising.  Thoughts  and 
images  come  and  go  with  the  apparent  caprice  and  lawlessness 
of  wizards  and  fairies — now  obtruding  themselves  when  they  are 
not  wanted,  and  then  hiding  themselves  most  provokingly,  not- 
withstanding the  most  earnest  desires  and  the  loudest  calls  for 
their  return.  To  explain  these  phenomena  by  certain  definite  prin- 
ciples is  an  essential  prerequisite  to  an  enlightened  theory  of  each 
of  the  special  forms  of  this  power,  as  the  memory,  the  fancy, 
and  the  imagination,  in  all  their  varieties.  All  these  so-called 
powers  of  the  soul  are,  as  has  been  explained,  but  special  forms 
of  the  general  power  mentally  to  represent  the  actual  past,  and 
they  must  all  depend  upon  common  conditions,  and  obey  common 
laws.  A  just  and  well  founded  theory  of  the  association  of  ideas 
lies  at  the  foundation  of  any  satisfactory  theory  of  all  these 
several  powers.  Representations  are  also  always  employed  in 
the  actings  of  the  other  leading  powers,  viz.,  sense-perception 
and  thought ;  and  for  this  reason  the  consideration  of  the  laws 
which  regulate  their  presence  or  absence  is  essential  to  a  com- 
plete elucidation  of  the  powers  with  which,  at  first,  they  seem  to 
have  little  concern.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  movements  of 
representation  are  explained,  this  explanation  is  taken  to  ex- 
plain almost  every  thing  beside ;  so  largely  do  the  coming  and 
going  of  represented  objects  enter  into  the  other  phenomena 
of  the  soul.  A  very  considerable  number  of  psychologists,  as 
we  have  already  remarked,  have  accordingly  resolved  all  the 
psychical  powers  into  the  operation  of  the  laws  of  association — 
viz.,  reasoning,  induction,  the  belief  in  causality  and  adaptation, 
and  even  in  time  and  space.  The  association  of  ideas  has  played 
a  most  conspicuous  role  in  the  modern  theories  of  the  soul  and  its 
operations,  and  its  influence  upon  such  theories  was  perhaps 
never  so  great  as  at  present.  Next  to  false  or  inadequate  theories 
of  sense-perception,  have  incorrect  theories  of  the  association 
of  ideas  exercised  the  most  mischievous  influence  upon  the 


§  153.      THE  CONDITIONS  AND  LAWS  OF  REPRESENTATION.         227 

scientific  views   of  the  soul,   and   indirectly   on   philosophical, 
ethical,  and  theological  theories  (cf.  §  40). 

§  152.  To  form  a  correct  theory,  it  is  necessary,  as  in  similar 
cases,  to  state  at  some  length  the  defective  or  erroneous  theories 
which  have  been  accepted  to  explain  these  operations  and  laws. 
This  will  enable  us  to  pronounce  a  critical  judgment  upon  their 
error,  as  well  as  to  recognize  the  truth  which  they  include,  and 
will  prepare  us  to  develop  a  theory  that  is  true  and  satisfactory. 

It  will  be  observed,  that  the  laws  of  association  pertain  to  what  Hamilton 
calls  the  reproductive,  as  distinguished  from  the  representative  power;  in  other 
words,  to  those  operations  of  the  soul  which  prepare  objects  for  the  soul's  appre- 
hension, as  distinguished  from  the  soul's  acts  in  cognizing  them  when  prepared 
and  presented  ($43).  In  representation  in  all  its  forms,  these  functions  must 
necessarily  be  very  prominent  and  important.  In  representation,  the  soul  pre- 
pares and  furnishes  its  own  objects  of  cognition.  The  capacity  to  do  this,  and 
the  laws  under  which  the  operation  is  performed,  are  analogous  to  the  psycho- 
physiological  capacities  and  acts  of  the  soul  by  which  sense-objects  are  pre- 
pared for  the  soul's  sense-perceptions.  ($  135.) 

The  laws  of  association  have  been  divided  into  two  leading 
classes,  the  primary  and  secondary,  which  otherwise  may  be  de- 
nominated general  and  special.  They  are  distinguished  thus  : 
the  primary  or  general  are  those  which  act  or  tend  to  act  at  all  times 
and  in  all  persons,  while  the  secondary  and  special  are  those  which 
determine  the  associations  of  different  persons  or  of  the  same  persons 
at  different  times. 

The  theories  which  we  shall  notice  apply  to  both  these  classes, 
though  more  eminently  to  the  primary.  We  begin  with 

I.   The  primary  laws  of  association. 

§  153.  We  observe,  (1.)  that  the  theory  is  unten-    . 

'    ^     '  J  Association  not 

able  which  explains  the  phenomena  of  associations  explained  by 

bodily   orgaui- 

by  the  mechanical  or  physiological  laws  of  a  bodily  s«tion. 
organ  which  is  assumed  to  be  the  instrument  of  the  soul   in 
representation. 

It  has  been  held  by  not  a  few  writers,  among  whom  Bonnet 
was  conspicuous,  that  the  brain,  or  nervous  system,  is  such  an 
organ.  As  what  we  know  in  sense-perception  was  thought  to  be 
or  depend  upon  certain  vibrations,  undulations,  or  oscillations 
of  the  brain  and  nerves,  so  it  was  held  that  the  objects  thus 


228  THE    HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  153. 

apprehended  for  the  first  time  can  be  re-presented  to  the  imagi- 
nation or  the  memory,  whenever  these  same  oscillations  or  vibra- 
tions are  resumed  or  repeated.  Others  maintained  that  every 
act  of  perception  results  in  a  permanent  condition  or  disposition 
of  certain  of  these  fibres,  which  is  active  again  in  represen- 
tation. Some  held  that,  in  addition  to  the  oscillating  fibres  of 
the  brain,  there  is  also  present  a  very  delicate  and  sensitive  fluid, 
intermediate  between  the  brain  and  the  soul.  Those  who  held 
that  the  soul  is  immaterial,  insisted  that  the  brain  and  nervous 
system  are  its  organs  in  representation,  on  the  action  of  which  the 
mind  as  completely  depends  for  its  images  and  remembrances  in 
representation,  as  it  does  on  the  organs  of  sense  for  its  objects  in 
perception.  Still  greater  plausibility  was  sought  for  this  theory 
by  the  attempt  to  show  that  the  soul  itself  has  a  special  seat  or 
organ  in  the  brain,  by  the  sympathy  of  which  with  the  vibrations 
of  the  remaining  portions  all  its  phenomena  can  be  explained.  In 
view  of  the  theory  that  the  senses  and  the  imagination  were  thus 
dependent  upon  the  sensorium,  i.  e.,  the  brain  and  nervous  sys- 
tem, etc.,  these  powers  were  formerly  ascribed  to  the  lower  or 
inferior  energy,  which  was  called  the  animal  soul,  or  the  soul  in 
contrast  with  the  spirit  or  higher  and  rational  soul,  to  which  the 
nobler  and  more  spiritual  functions  were  allotted.  In  modern 
times,  since  the  various  sensible  qualities  have  been  resolved  into 
modes  of  motion,  and  many  physiologists  and  some  psychologists 
have  resolved  the  capacities  of  the  sensorium  for  different  sensa- 
tions into  simple  susceptibilities  for  more  rapid  vibrations,  there 
has  been  a  renewed  disposition  to  make  the  representative  power 
to  depend  on  revived  vibrations  of  the  nervous  energy.  Such 
theories  have,  however,  been  usually  carried  out  to  the  bald 
materialism  with  which  they  have  a  strong  affinity. 

We  have  already  explained  sufficiently  how  earnestly  the  cere- 
bralists  and  associationalists  of  recent  times  reassert  the  same 
views,  and  seek  to  enforce  them  by  the  aid  of  the  results  of 
modern  physiology.  (§40.) 

All  these  theories  fail  to  be  supported,  by  reason  of  a  common 
defect.  The  structure  of  the  brain  and  nervous  system  in  no 
way  indicates  that  they  are  capable  of  the  vibrations  or  oscilla- 
tions which  are  postulated  of  them.  This  structure  is  not  en- 
tirely fibrous.  What  seem  to  be  fibres,  are  not  capable  of  the 


§  153.        THE  CONDITIONS  AND  LAWS  OF  REPRESENTATION.        229 

tension  and  relaxation  which  vibrations,  whether  rapid  and 
forcible,  or  slow  and  feeble,  would  require.  They  are  not  suffi- 
ciently numerous  to  answer  to  the  myriads  of  millions  of  states 
of  thought  and  feeling  which  are  represented  in  memory  and 
the  fancy.  Not  a  single  change  of  the  kind  alleged  has  ever 
been  known  to  occur  in  connection  with  a  represented  object. 
We  call  the  eye  and  the  ear  organs  of  sight  and  hearing, 
because,  with  the  observed  conditions  and  the  varying  states  of 
these  organs,  sensations  are  present  or  absent,  or  vary  in  quality 
and  force ;  but  never  has  a  nerve-movement  been  observed,  or 
even  conjectured,  to  which  might  be  referred  the  remembered 
face  of  an  absent  friend,  or  the  vivid  picture  of  a  once-visited 
scene.  Nor  has  any  vibration  of  fibres  or  nerves  ever  been 
known  to  be  connected  with  any  picture  or  remembrance  what- 
ever. No  nerve-cell  has  been  known  to  be  formed  in  connection 
with  a  picture  fixed  in  the  memory,  or  a  purpose  decisively 
taken.  Again,  the  theory,  if  satisfactory  in  every  other  par- 
ticular, would  fail  entirely  to  account  for  the  creative  energy  of 
the  imagination.  Representations  of  this  sort  are  very  abundant, 
and  often  very  vivid  and  forcible ;  but  how  the  most  of  these 
fantastic  and  gorgeous  scenes  could  be  provided  for  by  any  dis- 
position of  fibres  or  vibration  of  nerves,  it  is  impossible  to  see. 
What  makes  the  theory  plausible  is  the  fact  that  certain, 
conditions  of  the  body  are  connected  with  a  special  activity  of 
the  representative  power.  In  some  of  these  states  this  activity 
is  excessive,  irregular,  and  even  uncontrollable.  When  the 
body  is  in  health  and  in  a  normal  condition,  memory  both 
acquires  and  gives  up  its  treasures  with  the  ease  and  exactness 
of  instinct;  and  imagination  combines  and  creates,  as  if  by 
the  spell  of  an  enchanter,  so  skilfully  as  to  be  herself  surprised 
at  her  own  work.  Under  the  excitement  of  delirium,  the  eleva- 
tion of  enthusiasm,  or  the  brief  madness  of  passion,  the  power 
to  recall  and  create  seems  almost  to  be  used  by  another  self; 
now  mocking  the  vain  efforts  of  the  man  to  control  the  rush  of 
his  too  affluent  fancy,  and  now  suggesting  for  his  service  or  his 
delight  unexpected  stores  of  facts  and  fancies.  It  is  vain,  at 
times,  that  the  soul  essays  to  retard  or  to  still  the  throng  of 
unwelcome  images  that  break  in  upon  it  like  a  succession  of 
stormy  waves.  In  sleeplessness  induced  by  an  elation  of  the 


230  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  153. 

nervous  system,  the  rational  soul  seems  to  be  separated  from  the 
imagination,  and  to  become  the  passive  spectator  of  its  wayward 
caprices.  We  are  wearied  to  exhaustion  by  the  force  and  per- 
sistence with  which  these  fancies  at  once  bewilder  and  overmaster 
us.  In  delirium,  the  fancy  seems  to  have  completely  overmas- 
tered the  intelligence,  paralyzed  its  functions,  or  frightened  it 
from  asserting  its  rightful  supremacy. 

These  phenomena  can  be  accounted  for  by  two  considerations: 
First,  there  is  the  general  truth,  that  the  soul  is  dependent  for 
the  measure  of  force  which  it  has  at  command,  on  the  force  and 
normal  activity  of  the  powers  which  maintain  the  corporeal  life. 
When  the  bodily  force  is  weakened,  the  force  of  the  mind  is 
often  weakened  in  every  one  of  its  functions — in  sense,  represen- 
tation and  thought. 

Second,  a  disturbance  of  the  functions  and  activities  of  the 
body  is  attended  with  an  unequal  action  of  the  powers  of  the 
soul.  This  can  in  part  be  accounted  for  by  the  obtrusive  influ- 
ence of  the  sensations  and  other  mental  experiences  which  are 
the  consequence  of  irregular  bodily  action.  The  soul  seems  to 
have  at  its  command  only  a  certain  quantum  of  psychical 
energy,  which  may  be  evenly  distributed  among  the  various 
activities  of  which  it  is  capable — as  sense,  consciousness,  repre- 
sentation, and  thought ;  or,  if  concentrated  into  one,  it  is  in  so 
far  withdrawn  from  the  rest.  It  has  already  been  noticed,  that 
we  cannot  exert  the  utmost  energy  in  hearing  and  seeing  at  the 
same  instant ;  still  less  can  we  employ  sense-perception  and  the 
reasoning  powers  at  the  same  moment  and  with  the  highest 
energy  and  effect.  In  extreme  hunger  or  active  pain,  the  sen- 
sations are  so  absorbing  as  to  exclude  all  energetic  spiritual 
activities,  whether  of  thought  or  feeling.  In  still  other  con- 
ditions, the  generally  dormant  vital  and  muscular  sensations 
may  be  so  positively  obtrusive  as  to  weaken  the  soul's  capacity 
to  fix  the  attention  upon  any  other  objects  with  steadiness  and 
effect.  And  yet  these  muscular  or  vital  sense-perceptions, 
though  obtrusive  and  unpleasant  as  sensations,  may  be  so  vague 
and  indefinite  as  perceptions,  as  to  serve  chiefly  as  the  suggestors 
— under  the  laws  of  mental  association — of  other  images.  We 
ought  never  to  forget  that,  in  all  conditions  of  our  existence, 
so  long  as  we  exist  as  soul  and  body,  these  vague  sensations  of 


§  154.  CONDITIONS  AND  LAWS  OF  REPRESENTATION.  231 

which  the  body  in  all  its  parts  is  the  occasion,  form  the  constant 
background  on  which  are  projected  the  more  definite  and  dis- 
tinctly remembered  of  our  experiences.  When  these  sensations 
become  more  than  usually  active,  through  an  excited  or  a  diseased 
condition  of  the  body,  they  can  suggest  every  image  with  which 
they  have  been  connected  in  the  past ;  and  thus  preoccupy  the 
whole  force  of  the  soul's  activity.  The  condition  of  the  body 
may  affect  the  whole  activity  of  the  soul,  by  simply  introducing 
unusual  psychical  experiences,  which  operate  according  to  purely 
psychical  laws,  both  in  withdrawing  the  attention  from  the  rational 
functions,  and  in  obtruding  a  throng  of  associated  images.  These 
considerations  explain  many  cases  of  the  singular  and  almost 
capricious  dependence  of  the  memory  upon  the  varying  condi- 
tions of  the  body. 

§  154.  (2.)  The  phenomena  of  association  cannot 
be  resolved  into  any   attractive    force  in  the  ideas  sedation  °can- 
themselves,  by  which  they  suggest  or  revive  one  an-   to 
other.    This  theory  differs  from  the  one  just  discussed, 
in  making  the  ideas,  as  psychical  agents,  to  exert  a 
force  similar  to  that  which  was  ascribed  to  brain  cells  or  brain 
fibres. 

Many  of  the  explanations  given  of  the  phenomena  of  associa- 
tion, represent  ideas  as  attracting  one  another  somewhat  as 
two  drops  of  water,  or  two  globules  of  quicksilver  rush  into  one ; 
or  as  if,  when  the  larger  drop  or  globule  is  divided,  the  one  divi- 
sion draws  the  other  after  itself. 

Thus  Hobbcs  writes :  "  All  fancies  [phantasms]  are  notions  within  us,  relics  of 
those  made  in  the  sense ;  and  those  notions  that  immediately  succeeded  one 
another  in  the  sense  continue  also  together  after  sense ;  in  so  much  as  the  former, 
coming  again  to  take  place,  and  be  predominant,  the  latter  followeth,  by  cohe- 
rence of  the  matter  moved,  in  such  manner  as  water  upon  a  plane  table  is  drawn 
which  way  any  one  part  of  it  is  guided  by  the  finger."  (Zew.,p.  i.  ch.  iii.;  cf. 
Hum.  Nat.,  ch.  iii.,§  2;  and  Elem.  Phil.,  ch.  xxv.  Locke  says:  "Some  of  our 
ideas  have  a  natural  correspondence  and  connection  one  with  another : 
Ideas  that  in  themselves  are  not  at  all  of  kin,  come  to  bo  so  united  in  some  men's 
minds  that  'tis  very  hard  to  separate  them ;  they  always  keep  in  company,  and 
the  one  no  sooner  at  any  time  comes  into  the  understanding,  but  its  associate 
appears  with  it,  and  if  they  are  inoro  than  two  which  are  thus  united,  the  whole 
gang  always  inseparable,  show  themselves  together."  (E**ay.  B.  ii.,c.  xxxiii.,g  5). 
Hume  gays :  "  These  are,  therefore,  the  principles  of  union  or  cohesion  among 
our  simple  ideas,  and  in  the  imagination  supply  the  place  of  that  inseparable 


232  THE  HUMAN  INTELLECT.  §155 

connection  by  which  they  are  united  in  our  memory.  Here  is  a  kind  of  attraction^ 
which  in  the  mental  world  will  be  found  to  have  as  extraordinary  effects  as  in  tb* 
natural,  and  to  show  itself  in  as  many  and  as  various  forms.  Its  effects  are  every- 
where conspicuous ;  but  as  to  its  causes,  they  are  mostly  unknown,  and  must  be 
resolved  into  original  qualities  of  human  nature,  which  I  pretend  not  to  explain." 
(Hum.  Nat.,  B.  i.,p.  i.,Sec.  iv.)  James  Mill  (Analysis  of  the  Human  Mind,  chap, 
lii.)  says:  "When  two  or  more  ideas  have  been  often  repeated  together,  and  the 
association  has  become  very  strong,  they  sometimes  spring  up  in  such  close  com- 
bination as  not  to  be  distinguishable.  Some  cases  of  sensation  are  analogous. 
For  example :  when  a  wheel,  on  the  seven  parts  of  which  the  seven  prismatio 
colors  are  respectively  painted,  is  made  to  revolve  rapidly,  it  appears  not  of  seven 
colors,  but  of  one  uniform  color — white.  By  the  rapidity  of  the  succession  the 
several  sensations  cease  to  be  distinguishable ;  they  run,  as  it  were,  together,  and 
a  new  sensation,  compounded  of  all  the  seven,  but  apparently  a  single  one,  is  the 
result.  Ideas,  also,  which  have  been  so  often  conjoined,  that  whenever  one  exists 
in  the  mind  the  others  immediately  exist  along  with  it,  seem  to  run  into  one 
another — to  coalesce,  as  it  were,  and  out  of  many  to  form  one  idea ;  which  idea, 
however  in  reality  complex,  appears  to  be  no  less  simple  than  any  of  those  of 
which  it  is  compounded,"  etc.,  etc.  This  view  is  accepted  by  J.  Stuart  Mill,  and 
the  doctrine  of  "  inseparable  associations,"  thus  enounced,  is  with  him  the  axiom, 
which  is  the  "open  sesame"  of  all  metaphysical  and  psychological  problems. 

The  most  consistent  and  thorough-going  advocate  of  this  theory  of  the  attrac- 
tive force  of  ideas,  as  ideas,  either  in  ancient  or  modern  times,  is  Herbart.  All 
the  mental  phenomena,  and  even  the  several  powers  of  the  mind,  he  accounts  for 
by  the  actions  and  reactions  of  these  ideas.  Ideas  are  strengthened  when 
they  recur  often  enough  to  gather  the  force  which  blends  them  into  one  or  arranges 
them  in  a  permanent  series.  After  being  experienced,  they  remain  in  a  condition 
of  constant  tension,  ready  on  the  slightest  occasion  to  rush  back  into  the  posses- 
sion or  rather  the  presence  of  the  soul;  and  again  pressing  hard  to  return  as  soon 
as  a  kindred  object  of  perception  or  representation  shall  attract  them  back. 

This  theory  is  open  to  similar  objections  with  the  one  which  follows,  with 
which  it  is  intimately  allied.  We  observe  next,  that 

§  155.  (3.)  The  conditions  and  laws  of  representa- 

Nor  into  the          s  ^     \  •          n 

force  of  reia-  tion  cannot  be  referred  solely,  or  even  primarily,  to 
the  force   of  certain   classes  of  relations  which  exist 
between  ideas.     This  theory  is,  in  its  principle,  not  superior  to 
that  which  ascribes  attractive  force  to  the  ideas  themselves. 

Aristotle  enumerates  three  of  the  relations  which  are  said  to 
constitute  the  laws  of  representation,  viz. :  Contiguity  in  time  and 
space,  resemblance,  and  contrariety  (De  Mem.  et  Rem.,G.  ii.,§  viii.). 
Hume  asserts  the  three  laws  of  association  to  be  resemblance,  con- 
tiguity in  time  and  place,  and  cause  and  effect.  Others  increase 
this  number  to  seven,  viz. :  Coexistence  or  consecution  in  time ; 
contiguity  in  space;  dependence  as  cause  and  effect,  means  and  end, 
whole  and  part ;  resemblance  or  contrast ;  the  being  produced  by 


§  155.          CONDITIONS  AND  LAWS  OF  REPRESENTATION.  233 

the  same  power  or  conversant  about  the  same  object;  signified  and 
signifying ;  designated  by  the  same  sound.  Others,  as  Hamilton, 
contract  them  to  two:  Simultaneity  and  affinity.  All  these 
laws  are  founded  in  truth.  They  all  describe  facts  of  conscious- 
ness, although  they  fail  as  we  shall  see  to  recognize  the  ultimate 
principle  or  law  of  the  mind's  activity,  in  such  cases. 

Examples  can  easily  be  adduced  of  the  representation  of  ideas 
under  all  of  these  relations.  We  begin  with  those  of  place. 
When  I  recall  a  single  building  upon  a  familiar  street,  I 
think  at  once  of  the  building  adjoining,  and  so  on,  of  each  that 
is  next. 

Contiguity  of  time  is  illustrated  by  the  following:  When  a 
single  event  is  thought  of,  which  occurred  upon  some  day  of  my 
life  made  memorable  by  joy  or  sorrow,  that  event  suggests  the 
others  which  occurred  in  connection  with  itself — either  before  or 
after — till  the  whole  history  of  the  day  has  passed  in  review 
before  the  eye  of  the  mind. 

Inasmuch  as  all  objects  adjacent  in  space  must,  if  perceived 
with  attention,  be  originally  perceived  by  acts  successive  to  one 
another  in  time,  it  may  and  generally  will  happen  that  when 
they  are  recalled  as  contiguous,  they  may  also  be  recalled  as  suc- 
cessively perceived ;  and  thus  often  the  relations  of  time  and  place 
act  conjointly.  Thus,  if  I  examine  the  interior  of  a  large 
public  hall  or  church,  I  may  walk  around  it  on  my  feet,  drawing 
near  to  every  part  which  I  inspect ;  or,  standing  in  one  place,  I 
may  survey  every  object  by  successive  applications  of  the  eye, 
fixing  the  objects  in  memory  by  the  relations  of  time.  But  these 
objects  are  also  contiguous  in  place,  and  form  together  a  whole 
of  space. 

The  relations  of  similarity  and  of  contrast  serve  to  recall 
objects.  If  I  see  a  house  like  the  one  in  which  I  lived  when  a 
^hild — it  is  of  no  consequence  when  or  where — it  causes  me  to 
think  of  my  early  home.  If  I  see  a  face  that  resembles  the  face 
or*  a  dear  but  absent  friend,  it  brings  that  friend  to  mind.  The 
likeness  may  be  of  the  whole  to  the  whole,  or  of  a  part  to  a 
part ;  as  of  a  door  or  roof  (the  part  of  a  house)  to  a  door  or 
roof;  or  of  a  single  feature  in  the  face  to  another  feature.  So, 
objects  that  are  unlike,  especially  such  as  are  strikingly  con-* 
trasted,  recall  one  another.  Cold  makes  us  think  of  heat,  light 


234  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  156. 

reminds  us  of  darkness,  joy  of  sorrow  and  sorrow  of  joy,  sweet 
of  bitter  and  bitter  of  sweet. 

The  relation  of  cause  and  effect  is  constantly  recognized  in  our 
experience.  The  cause  may  recall  the  effect,  or  the  effect  the 
cause.  Fire  makes  me  think  of  heat,  and  ice  of  cold.  The 
wound  under  which  I  suffer,  recalls  the  blow  which  caused  it. 

Under  cause  and  effect,  and  dependent  upon  it,  is  the  relation 
of  means  and  ends.  Any  instrument  or  contrivance  suggests  the 
use  for  which  it  was  devised.  Thus,  a  fire-engine  makes  us  think 
of  a  conflagration ;  a  locomotive,  of  the  drawing  of  a  railway 
train;  a  thumbscrew,  or  a  case  of  surgical  instruments,  of  torture 
or  amputation.  The  thought  of  an  end  suggests  the  possible  or 
necessary  means.  If  a  weight  is  to  be  raised,  or  a  building  is  to 
be  moved;  we  think  of  a  lever,  or  a  combination  of  screws  and 
rollers. 

To  these  relations  three  -others  have  been  added.  Operations 
or  objects  of  the  same  power  or  faculty,  suggest  one  another,  and  the 
faculty  concerned.  The  sign  suggests  the  thing  signified,  and  the 
thing  signified  the  sign.  Objects  accidentally  denoted  by  the  same 
sound  are  associated.  A  little  attention  will  convince  any  one 
that  all  these  may  find  a  place  either  under  the  law  of  cause 
and  effect,  or  under  the  very  comprehensive  relation  of  con- 
tiguity of  space  and  time. 

The  attempt  to  increase  the  number  of  the  rela- 

Are  not  other      .  . 

relations  sup-    tions  that  are  conceived  to  operate  as  laws  of  asso- 

posable?  .  -IT. 

ciation  and  conditions  of  representation,  most  natu- 
rally suggests  the  inquiry,  whether  there  is  any  special  charm  in 
the  three  or  four  relations  of  resemblance,  contrast,  contiguity 
of  space  and  time,  and  causation,  which  invests  these  alone  with 
efficacy  in  the  production  of  ideas.  W«  ask  at  once,  Why  may 
not  any  other  relations  serve  as  well  as  these  ?  "Why,  of  the  two 
objects  that  are  connected  by  any  relations  whatever,  may  not 
each  suggest  its  correlate?  We  find,  in  point  of  fact,  that  this 
is  so — that  objects  connected  by  many  special  relations,  as  cf 
premise  and  conclusion,  evidence  and  inference,  do  recall  each 
other. 

§  156.  (4.)  Philosophers  have  with  greater  plau- 
sibility  united  all  these  relations  under  what  they 
have  called  the  law  of  redintegration,  which  is  thus 


§  156.          CONDITIONS  AND  LAWS  OF  REPRESENTATION.  235 

announced  :  Objects  that  have  been  previously  united  as  parts  of  a 
single  mental  state,  tend  to  recall  or  suggest  one  another.  Redinte- 
gration, as  here  used,  is  equivalent  to  the  complete  restoration 
of  the  whole,  on  condition  of  the  presence  of  one  or  more  of  its 
parts.  This  law  was  announced  by  St.  Augustine,  by  Wolff,  by 
Malebranche,  by  J.  G.  E.  Maass,  and  is  accepted  with  some 
qualification  by  Hamilton. 

It  is  an  interesting  question,  whether  this  law  will  meet  and  explain  all  the 
special  cases  of  representation.  If  we  concede  that  the  three  or  four  laws  or 
relations  enumerated  by  Hume  and  others  comprehend  every  supposable  in- 
stance, and  attempt  to  resolve  all  these  into  the  law  of  redintegration,  we  shall 
find  the  following  results  : 

(a.)  Objects  contiguous  in  time  present  no  difficulty.  Indeed,  the  law  of  red- 
integration might  be  viewed  as  only  another  expression  for  the  law  that  objects 
conjoined  in  time  tend  to  restore  or  suggest  one  another. 

(b.)  Objects  adjacent  in  space,  as  has  already  been  observed,  usually  come 
under  the  relation  and  law  of  contiguity  in  time,  and  are  therefore  easily  ac- 
commodated to  the  law  of  redintegration. 

(c.)  The  most  of  the  cases  in  which  objects  are  recalled  under  the  relation  of 
cause  and  effect,  will  readily  be  solved  by  the  law  of  redintegration.  For  in 
order  to  be  connected  as  cause  and  effect  so  as  to  be  recalled  the  one  by  the 
other,  they  must  first  have  been  united  under  this  relation  in  a  previous  mental 
»ct ;  and  if  so,  they  come  at  once  under  the  law  of  redintegration. 

What  is  true  of  causes  and  effects,  is  still  more  obvious  of  means  and  ends. 
The  same  is  true  of  premises  and  conclusions,  data  and  inferences,  or  the  so- 
called  logical  relations. 

(d.)  The  relations  of  similarity  and  contrast  present  some  difficulty.  When  I 
see  a  face  never  seen  before,  at  once  the  thought  flashes  upon  me,  "  The  face  is 
like  the  face  of  a  friend  long  absent  or  dead  ,•"  or  when  I  see  a  horse  which  stri- 
kingly resembles  in  color,  form,  or  action,  another  horse  which  I  formerly 
owned,  and  the  image  of  that  horse  is  called  to  mind,  the  objects  that  recall  and 
those  which  are  recalled,  were  never  conjoined  in  fact.  This  seems  to  be  in- 
solvable  by  the  law  of  redintegration. 

Maass (  Versveh  uber  die  Einbildnngskraft),  and  others  have  sought  to  bring  it 
unde-r  the  same  by  the  following  solution :  What  we  see  in  the  resembling  face, 
or  the  resembling  horse,  is  some  special  and  separable  feature  or  peculiarity,  one 
or  more.  Let  this  be  called  a,  and  let  the  remaining  features  or  peculiarities  bet 
called  b.  Let  all  the  observed  features  or  characteristics  of  the  same,  both  the' 
resembling  and  the  non-resembling,  be  called  A.  Let  the  face  or  the  horse  never 
seen  before  be  designated  by  B.  When  B  is  seen,  the  part  a  is  seen  as  a  separa- 
ble constituent,  for  by  the  supposition  it  attracts  special  attention.  The  first  act 
is  to  perceive  B ;  the  next  act,  to  notice  a,  the  resembling  feature ;  but  a  has 
before  been  conjoined  with  b,  giving  the  total  A.  As  soon  as  the  past  a  is  appro 
hended,  it  brings  back  its  associate  6,  and  A  is  therefore  recalled.  When,  for 
example,  I  look  at  a  portrait  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  I  am  reminded  of  its  like- 
ness to  the  portrait  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  because  of  the  ruff  which  is  about  the 
neck  of  each,  which  in  this  case  is  the.  only  common  feature  and  attracts  at  one* 


236  THE  HUMAN  INTELLECT.  §  156. 

the  attention.  The  ruff—  which  is  the  same  in  both — brings  back  every  thing 
besides  in  her  Majesty's  portrait — the  head-dress,  the  features,  the  sceptre,  the 
robes,  etc.,  etc.,  till  the  whole  is  restored.  If  this  solution  is  accepted,  the  law 
of  redintegration  is  established  as  the  one  comprehensive  and  sufficient  law  of 
representation.  And  this  would  be,  "  objects  which  have  been  previously  united  as 
parts  of  a  single  mental  state,  tend  to  recall  or  suggest  one  another." 

The  law  of  redintegration  cannot  be  accepted  for  the  reason  that : 
The  part  of  a  mental  state  which  is  said  to  recall  or  tend  to 
recall  the  whole,  is  not  literally  the  same  which  has  previously 
been  an  object  to  the  mind.  Every  time  the  mind  apprehends 
either  a  part  or  the  whole,  it  has  a  new  percept  or  image,  whether 
partial  or  total.  If,  having  seen  two  resembling  horses  together, 
I  afterward  see  one,  I  am  impelled  at  once  to  think  of  the  other ; 
or  if  the  sight  of  a  third  resembling  horse  makes  me  think  of  one 
or  both,  there  is  to  the  mind  in  every  instance  a  new  object  pre- 
sented and  pictured.  The  percept  of  the  same  horse  taken  in 
successive  moments,  or  at  long  intervals,  is  mentally  conceived 
not  as  the  same,  but  as  a  similar  mental  entity  or  object.  All  its 
force  to  attract,  or  suggest,  or  recall  another  object,  comes  not 
from  the  sameness  of  the  part  or  the  whole  objectively  viewed,  but 
from  the  similarity  of  the  two  or  more  mental  percepts  or  mental 
images  regarded  subjectively,  or  as  the  products  of  the  mind's 
similar  activities.  Whatever  this  tendency,  or  readiness,  or  force 
may  be,  it  is  derived  entirely  from  the  mind's  own  activity,  and 
not  at  all  from  the  sameness  of  the  objects  as  parts  or  wholes. 
The  mind  thinks,  or  tends  to  think  of  a  when  it  perceives  or 
thinks  of  b,  because  it  has  previously  acted  in  a  similar  activity, 
in  whole  or  in  part.  When  a  occurs  to  it,  whether  in  perception 
or  thought,  a  certain  form  of  partial  subjective  activrty  begins, 
which  involves,  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  the  like  activity  has 
been  previously  experienced,  a  greater  facility  of  completion. 

The  law  of  redintegration,  as  ordinarily  phrased  or  enounced, 
is  liable  to  the  qualification  which  was  noticed  in  §  154,  viz., 
that  no  attractive  force  can  be  affirmed  or  conceived  to  pertain 
to  ideas  as  such.  Objects  or  ideas  have  of  themselves  no  greater 
force  or  tendency  to  restore  those  which  with  themselves  made  up 
a  mental  state,  than  they  have  to  attract  one  another.  The  force 
in  the  final  analysis  must  come  from  and  reside  in  the  mhd 
whose  products  they  are. 


§  157.          CONDITIONS  AND  LAWS  OF  REPRESENTATION.  237 

§  157.  (5.)  The  real  principle  that  explains  all  the 

v     J  The  real  expla- 

phenomena  and  laws  of  association  is  to  be  found  m  nation.    HOW 

.  enounced. 

the  comprehensive  general  fact  or  law,  that  the  mind 
tends  to  act  again  more  readily  in  a  manner  or  form  which  is  simi- 
lar to  any  in  which  it  has  acted  before,  in  any  defined  exertion  of  its 
energy. 

As  the  result  of  our  analysis,  we  accept  this  as  the  principle 
which  comprehends  the  so-called  laws  of  association.  We  have 
seen  that  these  laws  are  not  physiological,  but  psychical ;  that  the 
attractive  force  by  which  one  idea  is  said  to  be  able  to  recall 
another,  does  not  lie  in  the  ideas  as  such,  viewed  as  separate  from 
the  mind's  energy  in  producing  or  beholding  them :  nor  does  it  lie 
in  the  relations  as  such  under  which  the  objects  were  connected  in 
the  mind's  previous  act  of  uniting  them,  nor  in  the  power  of  a  part 
of  the  mental  state  to  reproduce  its  fellow-part  or  whole,  but  in  the 
ultimate  truth  that,  in  whatever  way  the  mind  may  act,  it  thereby 
is  enabled  to  act  in  a  similar  manner  a  second  time.  Every  ori- 
ginal act  is  always  complex,  including  objects  separated  and 
united,  as  parts  and  as  a  whole,  by  definable  relations.  If  the 
mind  cognizes  a  part  of  any  of  these  wholes,  it  begins  to  act  in  a 
way  similar  to  that  in  which  it  has  acted  before.  The  tendency 
to  finish  the  whole  of*  the  act  thus  begun  explains  the  principle 
that  underlie's  the  laws  of  association. 

This  comprehensive  law  enables  us  to  explain  not  only  the  re- 
currence of  two  objects  that  have  previously  been  connected  in 
the  same  instant  of  time,  but  the  return  of  those  also  which  have 
followed  one  another  in  a  consecutive  order ;  as  the  words  that 
form  a  sentence  suggest  each  other,  or  the  names  that  have  been 
learned  in  a,  series,  or  the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  etc.,  etc. 

The  reference  of  the  laws  of  the  representative  power  to  the 
subjective  force  or  energy  of  the  mind,  explains  the  influence  of 
states  of  feeling,  as  well  as  acts  of  the  intellect,  upon  the  repre- 
sentative activities.  The  state  of  feeling  in  which  I  perceive  or 
think  of  an  object — e  g.,  a  glorious  sunset  or  an  interesting  story 
— is  often  as  distinct  to  my  apprehension  as  the  object  itself.  It 
should  follow  that  a  similar  feeling  excited  a  second  time  ought 
as  truly  to  tend  to  recall  a  similar  object,  as  a  similar  object  the 
feeling.  That  the  feelings  are  potent  instruments  of  memory,  ia 
confirmed^  by  the  experience  of  every  one.  It  often  happens  that 


238  THE  HUMA1ST   INTELLECT.,  §157. 

a  feeling  of  disgust  once  occasioned  by  some  object,  can  never  be 
experienced  again  without  recalling  the  object  itself.  This  is 
often  observed  of  the  bodily  sensations,  as  those  of  sea-sickness  or 
headache.  It  is  scarcely  less  conspicuous  in  the  experience  of 
purely  psychical  emotions  when  these  are  perfectly  defined  or  are 
traceable  to  some  determinate  cause;  like  home-sickness  or  sudden 
fright.  In  such  cases  the  experience  of  a  feeling  which  is  at  all 
similar  to  the  feeling  in  question,  however  dissimilar  may  be  the 
occasion  or  exciting  cause,  will  bring  back  the  intellectual  cogni- 
tion with  which  it  was  originally  connected.  We  have  already 
explained  that  in  such  cases  the  feeling  operates  through  the 
agency  of  the  intellect. 

This  principle  also  serves  to  explain  the  predominance  of 
certain  associations  over  the  intellect  and  character  of  different 
persons.  If  the  tendency  to  reproduction  and  recall  is  an 
original  force  or  law,  then  it  is  natural  that  the  energy  with 
which  any  individual  act  or  state  of  the  soul  tends  to  be  revived, 
should  be  proportioned  to  the  relative  force  of  the  original  act ; 
in  other  words,  to  the  attention  which  is  bestowed  upon  its  ob- 
jects or  parts,  whether  these  are  objective  or  subjective.  An 
excited  interest  is  the  condition  of  concentrated  attention  ;  for, 
as  has  already  been  observed,  aroused  fteling  awakens  the  in- 
tellect, detains  its  gaze,  and  excludes  distracting  objects.  Hence, 
the  intimate  dependence  of  the  memory  and  imagination  of 
different  persons  upon  the  character  and  strength  of  the  emo- 
tions, the  buoyancy  and  depression  of  their  spirits,  etc.  Hence, 
preeminently,  the  influence  of  those  commanding  purposes  and 
prevailing  habits  which  make  and  mark  the  individual  man, 
upon  the  objects  which  he  most  frequently  recalls  and  recombines, 
under  his  prevailing  and  dominant  associations.  That  every  man 
has  his  dominant  associations  is  universally  observed  and  con- 
fessed. The  reason  is,  with  the  one  person,  that  the  favorite  ob- 
jects of  the  soul's  activity  are  certain  classes  of  objects  with  their 
relations;  and  with  the  other,  objects  that  are  very  unlike  them. 
But  in  every  case,  the  associations  by  which  each  recalls  objects, 
follow  the  energy  with  which  he  cognizes  them.  One  man  recalls 
objects  and  relations  which  never  occur  to  another,  chiefly 
because  the  one  contemplates  these  objects  and  relations,  and 
with  intense  energy,  while  they  scarcely  catch  the  notice  or  at' 


§  157.          CONDITIONS  AND  LAWS  OF  REPRESENTATION.  239 

tention  of  the  other.  Open  before  two  men  the  same  landscape, 
the  same  picture,  the  same  architectural  design ;  tell  them  the 
same  narrative,  introduce  them  to  the  same  companion,  let  them 
listen  to  the  same  poem,  lecture,  or  sermon,  and  the  active  intel- 
lect of  each  will  be  busy  in  selecting  objects  from  each,  dis- 
cerning them  in  special  relations  and  fixing  them  for  future 
recall. 

Tt  also  explains  why  our  associations  with  objects  perceived  are 
more  energetic  and  permanent  than  those  connected  with  objects 
remembered  or  imagined.  That  which  is  seen  with  the  eye  or 
heard  with  the  ear,  other  things  being  equal,  holds  the  attention 
more  closely  and  longer  than  that  which  is  merely  remembered, 
or  painted  to  the  fancy.  It  is  constantly  present,  firmly  fixed,  and 
held  closely  before  the  mind  for  it  to  return  to  as  often  as  it  will. 
The  associations  with  home  are  a  good  illustration 
WithToCme.ions  of  this  principle.  When  we  merely  think  of  the 
home  of  our  childhood,  it  brings  back  a  throng  of 
recollections  associated  with  its  places  and  persons ;  but  when 
we  visit  our  home,  we  cannot  repress  them.  They  are  connected 
with  every  apartment ;  they  start  up  from  every  corner ;  they 
attend  upon  all  our  walks  ;  there  is  not  a  tree,  or  rock,  or  stream, 
but  thrusts  into  our  very  faces,  and  forces  upon  our  attention, 
its  throng  of  associate  memories. 

Objects  of  imagination  have  this  advantage  over  objects  of 
sense,  that  they  are  more  free  from  unwelcome  and  unpleasant 
elements,  and  are  subject  more  entirely  to  the  creative  power. 
But  objects  of  sense  stimulate  the  associative  tendency  to  greater 
energy,  and  furnish  it  with  the  greatest  variety  of  material. 

Our  principle  also  explains  why  certain  conditions  of  the 
body  affect  the  power  to  recall,  both  favorably  and  unfavorably. 
Disease  may  both  hinder  and  quicken  the  energies  of  the  soul  to 
acquire,  and,  of  course,  to  reproduce  its  acquisitions  ;  for,  in  all 
cases,  the  tendency  to  reproduce  is  measured  by  the  energy  of 
the  original  activity  ;  and  this  varies,  as  the  body  helps  or 
hinders  the  mind  to  detain  and  concentrate  its  attention  (cf. 
§  153). 

The  principle  which  refers  the  tendency  to  be  reproduced  to 
the  original  energy  of  apprehension  enables  us  to  understand 
why  the  mind  represents  only  a  portion,  and  often  but  a  singld 


240  (THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §158. 

element,  of  an  object  presented.  We  perceive  a  complex  ma- 
terial object ;  we  read  a  written  page  ;  we  examine  a  fine  draw- 
ing, engraving,  or  painting;  we  hear  and  understand  an 
elaborate  and  convincing  argument ;  we  enjoy  a  succession  of 
pleasurable  sensations  or  emotions.  But  we  bring  away,  or 
possess  the  power  to  recall,  only  a  few  parts  or  elements  of  each, 
but  those  are  invariably  the  parts  or  features  which  we  have 
energetically  presented  to  our  cognition.  If  we  revive  these 
speedily,  we  unite  and  preserve  them  by  an  act  of  greater  energy. 

It  is  essential  to  an  act  of  knowledge  that  its  objects  be 
discerned  in  some  relation.  States  of  feeling  even  are  moved" 
and  excited  by  the  discerned  relations  of  objects,  as  truly  as  by 
the  apprehension  of  their  unrelated  existence.  The  relation  is 
often  quite  as  much  an  occasion  of  intellectual  or  emotional 
activity  as  the  parts  related.  Sometimes  it  attracts  the  exclusive 
attention,  and  the  entities  concerned  are  set  aside  and  overlooked. 
I  may  listen  to  several  similar  sounds  from  different  musical 
instruments,  or  human  voices ;  the  sounds  compared  may  scarcely 
be  noticed,  only  the  circumstance  that  they  are  similar.  Twenty 
effects  may  be  produced  by  a  common  agent  or  cause.  The 
individual  effects  are  scarcely  observed,  for  the  attention  is  oc- 
cupied by  the  common  relation  by  which  they  are  connected. 
In  hearing  a  person  read,  or  in  reading  ourselves,  we  often  do 
not  notice  the  words ;  the  mind  takes  up  only  the  relations  which 
constitute  their  meaning. 

These  facts  explain  why  the  relations  of  objects,  and  especially 
why  three  or  four  more  prominent  relations,  figure  so  conspicu- 
ously as  laws  of  association.  The  relations  named  are  none 
other,  as  we  shall  see,  than  the  comprehensive  or  general  cate- 
gories which  connect  and  conditionate  all  our  knowledge  (§  515). 
These  relations  are  the  laws  of  association,  inasmuch  as  they  are 
the  instant  and  universal  conditions  of  original  cognition.  What- 
ever we  know  energetically  under  these  relations,  we  know  a 
second  time  under  and  by  means  of  one  or  more  of  these  cate- 
gories. 

II.   The  secondary  laws  of  association. 

§  158.  The  theories  which  we  have  considered  thus 
far  chiefly  relate  to  what  are  called  the  primary  lavs 
of  association.  Other  laws  have  also  been  proposed 


§  158.          CONDITIONS  AND  LAWS  OF  REPRESENTATION.  241 

which  are  called  secondary.  The  primary  laws  are  conceived  as 
explaining  the  tendency  of  certain  classes  of  objects  to  recur  to  the 
mind.  The  secondary  laws  are  conceived  to  regulate  the  recur- 
rence of  one  individual  object  in  any  of  these  classes  rather  than 
another.  They  might  with  propriety  be  called  laws  of  the  pre- 
ference or  precedence  of  particular  objects. 

The  secondary  laws  have  been  enumerated  and  propounded  as 
follows:  (1.)  Those  objects  are  more  likely  to  be  recalled,  .other 
things  being  equal,  which  occupy  the  mind  for  the  longest  period 
of  time ;  (2.)  those  also  which  are  apprehended  most  vividly ;  (3.) 
those  which  are  brought  most  frequently  before  the  mind ;  (4.)  those 
which  were  most  recently  present;  (5.)  those  which  are  the  most 
free  from  entangling  relations;  (6.)  those  which  are  contemplated 
with  the  greatest  strength  of  emotion ;  (7.)  those  which  are  viewed 
with  favoring  circumstances  of  bodily  health ;  (8.)  those  which  are 
coincident  with  prevalent  habits ;  (9.)  those  to  which  the  original 
constitution  of  body  or  mind  furnishes  a  special  aptitude,  (cf.  Dr. 
Thomas  Brown,  Lecture  37.) 

A  critical  examination  of  these  laws  will  enable  us  to  reduce 
them  to  some  general  expression.     Perhaps  it  will  show  that  both    ^JJJ  fa];o  "JJJ" 
the  secondary  and  primary  rest  upon  the  same  general  principle,    same  principle 
The  first,  concerning  length  of  time,  has  already  been  shown  to    ^ary.    ?   Pn" 
be  necessarily  involved  in  the  operation  of  the  general  law  for 
which  we  have  contended,  that  an  attentive  or  energetic  apprehension  of  objects 
in  their  relations  is  a  ground  of  their  tendency  to  be  recalled.     The  second  is 
nearly  coincident  with  the  same  fundamental  principle. 

The  third  presents  ground  for  inquiry.  Why  does  simple  repetition  give  any 
advantage  ?  We  answer :  A  second  look,  especially  if  it  follows  that  which  pre- 
ceded after  a  considerable  interval  of  time,  presents  the  object  as  divested  of  the 
distracting  influences  which  novelty  furnishes.  Each  new  or  repeated  view, 
whether  near  or  remote,  also  reveals  some  fresh  relation  either  to  a  familiar  or  a 
novel  object,  and  thus  increases  the  chance  of  its  being  suggested  to  the  mind  a 
second  time.  For  example,  by  one  act  the  diamond  is  apprehended  as  the  bright- 
est, or  the  hardest,  or  the  most  mostly  of  the  gems;  and  so,  when  the  gems  are 
thought  of,  the  diamond  is  suggested.  At  another  view,  its  relation  to  carbon  is 
discerned,  and  then  the  diamond  will  be  recalled  when  charcoal,  or  marble,  or 
carbonic  acid  are  present  to  the  thoughts. 

The  fourth  law  is,  that  an  object  contemplated  recently,  is,  if  other  things  are 
equal,  more  likely  to  be  recalled  than  the  same  object  if  viewed  longer  ago.  A 
countenance  casually  and  hastily  seen  an  hour  since,  may  be  recollected  or  re- 
called by  another  similar  face  within  this  short  interval  of  time,  but  may  be  lost 
forever  if  the  occasion  which  suggests  it  does  not  soon  present  itself.  The  fact  is 
unquestioned,  and  it  may  perhaps  be  inexplicable.  But  obviously,  it  rather  con- 
cerns Joss  or  waste  of  power,  than  any  positive  force  or  tendency.  If  expressed  in 


242  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  158. 

the  language  or  terms  taken  from  the  general  principle  which  we  have  laid  down 
as  fundamental,  it  would  be  thus  phrased :  "  the  tendency  of  any  act  of  the  mind 
to  be  recalled  or  repeated  is  weakened  by  disuse,  till,  finally,  it  wholly  ceases.'' 
Whether  it  is  properly  said  to  be  weakened,  or  superseded,  is  an  open  question. 
This  is  true  of  the  kindred  question,  whether  any  acquisition  of  the  mind  can  be 
irrecoverably  lost. 

One  palpable  and  prominent  exception  to  this  general  tendency  to  weakness  or 
loss  may  be  urged,  in  the  frequent  cases  of  persons  who  in  old  age  remember 
nothing  so  vividly  as  the  scenes  and  events  which  occurred  longest  ago.  Often 
the  whole  of  the  intervening  life  is  entirely  effaced  from  the  soul,  while  the 
memories  of  youth  and  childhood  are  still  vivid  and  distinct.  Several  reasons 
may  be  given  for  this  plain  exception  to  the  operation  of  the  laws  already  con- 
sidered. Many  of  the  remembrances  of  childhood  have  been  recalled  again  and 
again  through  a  long  life.  Though  the  events  of  childhood,  as  realities,  were 
present  to  the  mind  longest  ago,  yet,  as  thouyht-oljects,  they  may  be  the  most 
fresh  and  recent.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  the  objects  and  events  of  child- 
hood were  contemplated  by  the  mind  at  first  with  an  almost  exclusive  and  ab- 
sorbing attention.  The  memorable  occurrences  of  childhood  were  the  absorbing 
subjects  of  thought  for  days  before  they  occurred.  They  were  reviewed  with 
the  fondest  reflection  after  they  were  past.  The  learning  to  count  ten  or  one  hun- 
dred, the  wearing  of  a,  certain  dress  ;  the  beginning  of  school-life ;  the  long  antici- 
pated, the  often-reviewed  and  recited  visit  to  some  relative,  the  first  considerable 
journey,  the  first  party,  the  first  composition — were  most  important  occurrences 
in  their  time,  and  spread  themselves  along  a  large  portion  of  the  horizon  of  the 
infant  life. 

The  fifth  law  (which  relates  to  entangling  relations)  has  already  been  pro- 
vided for.  If  the  points  or  features  to  which  these  relations, — and  the  thereby 
related  objects, — are  attached,  are  very  numerous,  the  greater  is  the  probability 
that  the  objects  will  be  recalled,  provided  the  relations,  and  the  related  objects,  be 
discerned  with  equal  energy  of  attention  and  ardor  of  interest.  But  if  the 
multiplicity  of  relations  divides  and  thus  weakens  the  interest,  the  influence  of 
their  number  is  distracting  and  entangling.  In  illustration  of  the  operation 
of  this  law,  Dr.  Brown  observes :  "  The  song  which  we  have  never  heard  but 
from  one  person,  can  scarcely  be  heard  again  by  us  without  recalling  that  person 
to  our  memory ;  but  there  is  obviously  much  less  chance  of  this  particular  sug- 
gestion, if  we  have  heard  the  same  air  and  words  frequently  sung  by  others" 
(Lecture  31). 

Upon  this  we  remark :  If  the  frequent  repetition  of  the  song  has  the  effect  to 
withdraw  the  attention  from  the  first  impression,  and  to  exclude  its  being  often 
repeated  and  revived,  then  it  becomes  less  likely  that  the  person  who  sung  it  for 
the  first  time  will  be  suggested  by  the  air ;  but  if,  every  time  it  is  sung  by  any 
one,  that  person  is  recalled,  then  the  song  will  be  more  ineffaceably  associated 
with  him  the  more  frequently  it  is  sung. 

The  sixth  and  seventh  have  already  been  noticed  and  explained  (££152.3). 
The  eighth  needs  but  a  word.  So  far  as  facility  of  association  depends  on  repe- 
tition, and  so  far  as  particular  habits  facilitate  repetition,  so  far  is  this  general 
fact  resolved  by  the  law  concerning  repetition.  So  far  as  habit,  or  easy  repetition 
by  habit,  enables  us  to  concentrate  the  attention  with  greater  energy  and  interest^ 


§  159.        CONDITIONS   AND   LAWS  OF   REPRESENTATION.  243 

so  far  is  its  power  explained  by  the  strength  of  the  single  or  repeated  apprehen- 
sions for  which  habit  provides. 

The  ninth  law  supposes  that  there  are  original  differences  and  aptitudes  in 
different  individuals  for  certain  classes  of  associations.  This  is  doubtless  true. 
But  it  should  never  be  forgotten  that  these  original  aptitudes  do  not  pertain  to 
the  faculty  of  representation  or  the  so-called  faculty  of  association  as  such,  but 
that  it  extends  equally  to  the  power  of  presentation  and  intuition.  Whatever 
we  energetically  observe  or  connect  by  relations,  in  original  intuition,  we  revive 
by  association.  There  is  no  special  aptness  for  special  associations,  or  for  vari- 
ous and  ready  suggestion,  separate  from  a  readiness  to  discern  special  classes 
of  objects  and  relations,  and  to  discern  them  with  interest  and  energy. 

§  159.  There  are  what  seem,  on  the  first  aspect, 
exceptions  to  the  universal  application  of  the  law 
of  association.  There  are  many  cases  when  a  S^* 
thought  seems  all  at  once  to  dart  into  the  mind, 
which  has  no  apparent  connection  with  any  thought  or  thing 
that  is  present.  We  cite  the  familiar  example  recorded  by  Hob- 
bes :  "  In  a  company  in  which  the  conversation  turned  upon  the 
late  civil  war,  what  could  be  conceived  more  impertinent  than 
for  a  person  to  ask  abruptly,  What  was  the  value  of  a  Roman 
denarius  ?  On  a  little  reflection,  however,  I  was  able  to  trace 
the  train  of  thought  which  suggested  the  question ;  for  the 
original  subject  of  discourse  introduced  the  history  of  the  king, 
and  of  the  treachery  of  those  who  surrendered  his  person  to  his 
enemies  ;  this  again  introd  uced  the  treachery  of  Judas  Iscariot, 
and  the  sum  of  money  which  he  received  for  his  reward  "  (Levia- 
than, p.  i.  c.  3). 

This  case  is  no  more  singular  nor  striking  than  the  experience 
of  any  lively  mind  could  furnish  in  every  half-hour.  If  any 
person  not  absorbed  with  the  objects  of  sense,  or  bent  upon  some 
present  achievement,  will  break  in  upon  his  movements  of 
reverie  with  the  question,  How  did  this  or  that  thought  occur  to 
my  mind  ?  he  will  be  surprised,  and  perhaps  amused,  at  the 
series  of  strangely  connected  thoughts  which  introduced  it  to  his 
notice.  In  many  cases,  the  thought,  though  apparently  abrupt  and 
strange,  will  be  found  to  have  a  real  connection  with  the  thought 
which  it  seemed  to  jostle  and  displace.  There  are  thoughts, 
however,  the  connections  of  which  we  cannot  follow.  What  ought 
we  to  believe  in  respect  to  these?  Should  we  still  hold  that  the 
laws  of  association  govern  their  movement,  though  we  cannot 
trace  their  presence  or  furnish  the  proof  of  their  working  ? 


244  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  159. 

In  answer  to  this  question,  two  opposite  views  have  been  main- 
tained. The  first  is  held  by  Dugald  Stewart  and  others — that 
the  mind  is  momentarily  conscious  of  the  presence  of  these  in- 
tervening objects,  though  it  cannot  recall  them  in  memory ;  that 
they  are  present  long  enough  to  act  as  -media  of  association,  but 
not  long  enough  to  leave  any  trace  of  their  presence. 

The  second  theory  is  urged  by  Hamilton,  following  a  sugges-. 
tion  of  Leibnitz,  and  agreeing  with  the  school  of  Herbart. 
These  all  contend  that,  "  though  these  intermediate  objects  may 
be  present  long  enough  to  influence  the  train  of  consciously  as- 
sociated thoughts,  yet  the  mind  is  in  no  sense  aware  of  their  pre- 
sence ;  for  it  is  un philosophical  to  suppose  an  object  present  to 
consciousness  without  leaving  some  impression  upon  the  memory. 
No  analogous  cases  can  be  adduced,  and  the  hypothesis  must  be 
rejected  as  groundless."  Besides,  it  is  urged,  "  another  principle 
can  be  adduced  to  explain  the  phenomena — that  of  latent  or  un- 
conscious modifications  of  the  mind.  In  this  we  have  a  re- 
cognized and  actually  existing  law,  which  is  sufficient  to  account 
for  all  the  facts."  (Met.,  Lee.  xviii.) 

Upon  this  argument  we  observe,  that  Lt  is  not  true,  as  is  repre- 
sented, that  there  are  no  grounds  on  which  to  rest  the  first  hypo- 
thesis. In  the  very  case  supposed,  when  one  idea  suddenly  and 
strangely  follows  upon  another,  if  we  bethink  ourselves  at  once, 
we  can  recall  some  intervening  links.  We  say,  if  we  bethink 
ourselves  at  once  ,  for  if  the  effort  is  made  a  few  instants  later, 
the  clue  will  fall  from  our  hands.  At  other  times,  when  it  seems 
to  have  totally  escaped  and  eluded  us,  it  can  be  recovered  by 
persistent  effort  and  determination.  Now,  the  fact  that  in  some 
apparently  desperate  cases  we  can  succeed,  demonstrates  that 
the  objects  might  have  been — nay,  that  they  actually  were, 
present  to  the  consciousness,  though  they  seemed  not  to  have 
been.  We  have  a  right  to  infer,  then,  on  grounds  of  analogy, 
that  they  are  so  in  all  cases.  The  analogy  of  acknowledged  and 
similar  phenomena  is  wholly  with  the  first  theory.  Moreover, 
analogy  would  seem  to  suprgest  and  confirm  the  principle,  that 
where  there  is  a  feeble  activity  of  consciousness,  there  is  a  feeble 
hold  upon  the  memory  ;  and  we  conclude  conversely,  that  where 
there  is  the  slenderest  hold  upon  the  memory,  there  must  have 
been  the  feeblest  possible  energy  of  consciousness.  What  is  in- 


§  160.          CONDITIONS  AND  LAWS  OF  REPRESENTATION.  245 

tended  by  the  phrase  latent  modification  of  consciousness,  is 
not  altogether  clear.  If  it  be  explained  as  only  a  very  low 
degree  of  conscious  activity,  the  two  theories  are  in  principle  the 
same. 

§  160.  The  representative  power  tends  to  unceasing  Re,pre8eritation 
activity.  The  mind,  if  given  up  to  the  operation  of  Jf106*8'.^*?" 
the  laws  of  association,  would  never  cease  to  furnish  cau  be  inter' 

rupted. 

itself  with  new  objects.  Each  object  last  discerned 
would  suggest  another.  This  would  call  up  its  fellow,  and  the 
series  of  successive  objects  would  suffer  no  interruption  and  would 
come  to  no  end.  It  has  been  said  with  great  effect — that,  were 
the  senses  excited  to  action  only  long  enough  to  furnish  the  soul 
with  requisite  material  and  fully  to  develop  all  its  powers,  and 
then  to  be  sealed  up  forever,  the  spirit  would  have  acquired 
material  enough  for  its  endless  activity  in  simple  representation. 
(Bishop  Butler,  Analogy,  p.  i.,  c.  i.)  We  know  from  observa- 
tion, that  when  the  other  activities  are  as  nearly  suspended  as  is 
possible,  as  in  dreaming  and  reverie,  the  train  of  associated 
objects  still  rushes  past  the  eye  of  fancy  with  a  rapidity  that 
cannot  be  measured.  But  strong  as  this  activity  is,  and  difficult 
of  control  as  at  times  it  may  be,  it  does  not  often  assume  exclu- 
sive or  supreme  possession.  There  are  two  methods  by  which 
this  activity  is  interrupted  and  turned  aside.  The  one  is  objec- 
tive, the  other  is  subjective. 

We  consider,  first,  the  objective  interruption.  Every  new 
object  of  sense-perception  introduces  a  foreign  and  diverting  ele- 
ment. In  such  cases  representation  gives  way  to  presentation  or 
acquisition.  We  do  not  deny  that  both  these  activities  may  be 
exerted  together,  and  that  presentation  and  representation,  may 
go  forward  side  by  side.  It  would  seem  from  experience  that 
this  often  happens.  In  waking  gently  from  sleep,  the  images  of 
the  dream-world  blend  with  the  realities  of  the  sense-world. 
Even  in  our  waking  hours,  the  hard  world  which  the  senses  give 
us,  is  beset  by  the  spirit-world  in  which  we  dream.  The  soberest 
world  of  the  most  prosaic  and  practical  thinker  sparkles  with 
the  images  which  the  fancy  interweaves  into  its  homely  fabric. 
Let  this  be  admitted,  and  still  it  is  true  that  the  two  species  of 
activity  cannot  occupy  the  attention  at  the  same  moment  with 
equal  energy;  and  that  the  sense-world  and  sense-objects  will 


246  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  160. 

break  in  upon  trie  activity  of  the  fancy.  Let  but  a  single  object 
do  this  for  a  single  instant,  and  a  starting  point  is  furnished  for 
a  new  train  of  thought  in  an  entirely  new  direction. 

The  subjective  interruption,  diversion,  and  control  of  the  repre- 
sentative activity  of  the  soul,  are  still  more  important.  The  ego 
which  at  times  may  seem  to  be  the  helpless  victim  or  the  amused 
spectator  of  this  moving  diorama,  is  not  always  an  idle  or  pas- 
sive looker-on.  It  has  but  to  detain  any  single  object,  and  the 
object  detained  suggests  new  objects,  to  each  of  which  it  sustains 
many  relations.  By  simply  arresting  the  course  of  representation, 
its  independent  activity  is  as  truly  controlled  and  newly  directed 
as  if  some  object  of  sense  had  obtruded  itself  upon  the  attention. 

But  the  mind  can  do  that  which  is  far  more  effective  and  im- 
portant than  to  detain  an  object  before  its  attention  from  impulse 
or  passive  excitement.  It  can  exert  upon  every  such  object  its 
higher  activities  of  thought.  If  it  cognizes  the  existence  of  the 
object,  it  discerns  it  as  present,  and  as  diverse  from  itself.  It 
may  remember  it  as  having  before  been  present.  It  may  compare 
it  with  other  objects,  bring  it  into  a  new  or  a  familiar  class,  name 
it,  reason  about  it,  make  from  it  some  induction,  mould  it  into 
some  imaginative  creation,  apply  it  in  illustration  and  analogy, 
discern  in  it  relations  of  beauty,  learn  from  it  some  moral  lesson, 
or  find  in  it  some  manifestation  of  the  divine.  Each  one  of  these 
activities  will  evolve  a  new  product,  which  product  may  serve  as 
a  starting-point  for  a  new  series  of  representations.  These  activi- 
ties are  far  more  potent  and  effective  than  the  merely  passive 
services  of  the  representing  power,  though  they  blend  with 
them  so  intimately  as  not  easily  to  be  distinguished  from  them. 
As  the  mind  mingles  the  thinking  power  with  the  activity  of  per- 
ception, when  it  seems  only  to  see  and  hear  with  the  organs  of 
sense,  so  does  it  elevate  and  transform  its  acts  of  memory  and 
fancy  by  the  penetrating  analysis  and  combining  synthesis  of 
rational  judgment. 

That  is  a  most  superficial  and  limited  conception  of  the 
representative  power  and  the  laws  of  association,  which  resolves 
into  them  all  the  nobler  and  more  important  operations  and  pro- 
ducts of  the  human  soul.  Such  a  view  excludes  individuality 
and  self-respect— as  well  as  the  capacity  for  the  higher  achieve- 
ments of  science,  duty  and  faith,  (cf.  §  40). 


§  160.          CONDITIONS  AND  LAWS  OF  REPRESENTATION.  247 

Besides  this  direct  action  upon  the  representative  faculty,  there 
is  another  which  is  exerted  indirectly,  if  possible  with  greater  effect. 
The  action  is  direct  when,  in  the  ways  described,  the  ego  arrests 
and  modifies  the  onward  current  of  what  would  otherwise  be  pas- 
sive tendencies.  It  is  indirect  so  far  as,  by  every  such  action,  a 
greater  facility  or  force  is  given  to  such  tendencies  for  the  future. 
Every  present  energy  of  attention,  every  special  effort  of  creation 
or  thought,  gives  additional  strength  to  certain  bonds  of  associa- 
tion, and  imparts  special  facility  to  the  mind  in  reviving  their 
objects.  This  very  circumstance  enables  us  to  apply  the  mind  to 
similar  objects  with  less  effort  and  greater  pleasure,  till  at  last 
the  mind  has  created  for  itself  almost  a  new  medium  of  life,  a 
second  atmosphere  for  its  own  easy  and  familiar  action,  which  is 
purely  the  product  of  its  own  previous  activities.  The  feelings 
provide  for  their  own  perpetuation  and  increased  force  as  they 
direct  to  this  or  that  intellectual  activity.  Hence,  preeminently, 
every  controlling  or  commanding  purpose,  whether  morally  good 
or  bad,  tends  to  perpetuate  itself,  and  to  secure  the  execution  of 
its  own  behests.  Un  ier  the  constant  presence  and  guiding  con- 
trol of  such  a  purpose,  all  the  trains  of  associated  objects  become 
its  "  ready  servitors,"  which  bring  to  mind,  when  needed,  the  facts 
and  suggestions,  the  illustrations  and  arguments,  the  happy 
phrases  and  expressive  words,  which  are  required  for  thought, 
expression,  and  act.  Various  familiar  phenomena  illustrate  the 
force  of  these  indirect  influences  upon  the  representative  faculty. 
The  same  material  object  suggests  to  different  persons  associations 
that  are  entirely  unlike  and  even  opposite  to  one  another.  The 
scene,  the  house,  the  apartment,  which  to  one  man  is  full  of  the 
deepest  interest,  is  to  another  indifferent.  To  one  person  it  recalls 
suggestions  fraught  with  peace,  affection,  and  joy ;  to  another, 
memories  of  hatred,  remorse,  and  terror.  To  the  same  man,  on 
different  occasions  and  in  different  moods,  the  same  object  will 
suggest  different  associations,  according  to  the  feelings  of  the  hour 
or  the  purpose  for  which  he  is  thinking.  We  may  almost  say 
without  exaggeration,  that  in  every  present  activity  of  the  mind 
there  is  revived  and  indirectly  made  to  reappear  the  whole  of  the 
man's  previous  history,  as  each  of  its  acts  and  events  have  been 
taken  up  by  the  force  of  the  soul's  purely  passive  tendencies,  and 
so  incorporated  into  its  very  essence. 


248  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  161. 

§  161.   The   law   of  association,  according   to   the 

Lawofassocia-       .-.'-•..  -,  u.   ,      ,          \ 

tion  and  law  of  views  of  its  nature  and  energy  which  have  been  en- 
forced, rests  upon  the  same  original  principle  usually 
known  as  the  law  of  habit.  One  object  suggests  another,  because 
one  mental  state  which  is  similar  in  part  to  another  tends  to  be 
like  it  in  every  particular.  This  principle,  when  expressed  in 
other  language,  is  equivalent  to,  Any  mental  activity  or  experi- 
ence, when  it  is  repeated,  is  more  readily  performed. 

Habit,  Lat.  habitus,  Gr.  SZts,  is  literally  a  way  of  being  held, 
or  of  holding  one's  self.  Thus  defined,  it  must  denote  a  perma- 
nent state  of  rest  which  has  been  reached  as  the  result  of  action 
or  growth,  or  a  permanent  form  of  activity,  or  of  readiness  or 
facility  for  any  kind  of  activity.  As  such  facility  for  action  is 
universally  observed  to  result  from  repetition  of  action,  this  last 
element  is  taken  up  into  the  conception  or  definition  of  habit. 
The  acquisition  of  facility  by  repetition,  supposes  that  some  diffi- 
culty or  hindrance  has  been  overcome,  whether  the  habits  are 
purely  psychical  or  corporeal,  or  whether  they  are  both  physical 
and  mental  conjoined ;  whether  they  are  emotional  or  moral,  or 
whether,  as  is  often  true,  they  are  all  three  together. 

Examples  of  bodily  habits  are  furnished  by  a  particular  gait ; 
the  dexterous  management  of  the  hand  in  the  use  of  a  saw,  a 
chisel,  a  hatchet,  or  a  plane,  in  driving  or  in  drawing ;  and  the 
control  of  the  limbs  in  dancing  or  gymnastic  feats.  The  acquisi- 
tion of  such  habits  does  indeed  usually  involve  some  psychical 
activity,  and  the  gain  of  facility  by  repetition.  But  we  may  consider 
apart  the  formation  of  the  body  only  to  a  new  habitude,  and  for 
the  moment  have  to  do  only  with  the  changes  in  the  states  and 
functions  of  the  body  which  our  senses  observe  to  be  more  and 
more  readily  made.  .  We  suppose,  that  at  the  outset  the  special 
use  required  is  difficult,  either  because  some  habitual  and  unde- 
sirable adjustment  or  predisposition  of  the  muscles  has  been 
attained,  or  because  they  are  imperfectly  or  wrongly  adjusted  by 
nature.  An  effort  is  required  involving  physical  tension  or  phy- 
sical pain ;  as  when  we  would  bring  the  organs  to  utter  the  unused 
sounds  of  a  strange  language,  or  would  bring  the  fingers  or  the 
limbs  to  painful  or  constrained  positions.  We  may  explain  the 
obstacle  or  hindrance  by  a  certain  power  or  tendency  of  the 
reflex  activities  of  the  nervous  system.  The  conquest  may  con- 


§161.          CONDITIONS  AND  LAWS  OF  REPRESENTATION.  249 

sist  in  the  facility  which  it  is  possible  to  acquire,  by  a  gradual 
assumption  in  the  reflex  motors  of  new  forms  of  muscular  adjust- 
ment. 

We  pass  next  to  mental  habits— -first,  those  which  are  devel- 
oped in  connection  with  such  bodily  adjustments  as  we  have  sup- 
posed ;  and  second,  those  which  concern  functions  that  are  simply 
and  purely  mental.  Side  by  side  with  the  new  adjustments  to 
which  the  muscles  are  constrained  with  a  more  and  more  ready 
obedience,  there  must  proceed  a  constantly  increased  facility  in 
the  mind's  connection  and  control  of  the  appropriate  sensations, 
according  to  the  ends  which  it  intends  to  accomplish ;  i.  e.,  the 
mind  in  such  cases  furnishing  the  real  beginnings  of  the  new  ad- 
justments and  growths  of  the  body.  The  juggler  and  the  gym- 
nast, the  mechanic  and  the  artist,  the  dancer  and  the  player  on 
the  violin  or  the  organ,  do  not  simply  train  the  bodily  organs  to 
the  requisite  suppleness  and  aptitudes,  but  they  acquire  a  sur- 
prising readiness  of  the  mind  to  connect  with  every  movement 
those  sensations  which  indicate  and  regulate  the  activities  to  which 
the  body  is  physically  trained.  If  a  mental  facility  supposes  a 
mental  difficulty,  what  is  the  nature  of  the  difficulty  ?  It  is  an 
original  difficulty  of  mental  application  to  certain  mental  objects, 
and,  consequently  in  the  ready  mental  combination  of  the  objects 
which  are  concerned.  This  intellectual  obstacle  is  usually  in- 
creased, and  in  some  cases  wholly  occasioned,  by  one  that  is 
emotional  or  moral. 

In  habits  that  are  purely  mental,  as  in  the  greater  facility  that 
is  acquired  by  study  in  general ;  or  the  surprising  progress  which 
may  be  made  in  any  special  science,  as  the  mathematics  or  the 
languages ;  or  the  still  more  unlooked-for  dexterity  which  may  be 
gained  in  certain  intellectual  feats,  as  of  punning,  rhyming,  etc., 
etc.,  the  difficulty  lies  in  a  reluctant  or  unwonted  attention,  and 
the  dexterity  pertains  to  the  subjective  tendency  toward  similar 
activities  which  is  acquired  by  exercise.  The  difficulty  and  the 
capacity  for  facility  are  both  assumed  to  be  unquestioned  and 
original  facts. 

When  the  habits  are  purely  emotional  or  moral,  so  far  as  they 
can  be  conceived  as  such,  the  difficulty  to  be  encountered  is  a 
natural  or  acquired  tendency  to  excessive  and  abnormal  activity 
in  any  emotion.  This  tendency  can  be  overcome  only  by  the 


250  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §162. 

frequent  exercise  of  other  emotions,  till  they  act  with  normal 
readiness  and  strength.  Leaving  out  of  account  the  voluntary 
element,  or  rather  supposing  that  this  is  lightly  adjusted,  it  may 
be  assumed  that  this  original  hindrance  to  the  natural  tendencies 
remains  when  the  new  habits  are  to  be  acquired.  The  completion 
of  moral  or  emotional  habits  ordinarily  involves  also  the  training 
of  the  intellectual  habits  to  the  ready  suggestion  of  new  thoughts 
and  very  often  of  the  body  itself  to  readiness  in  appropriate 
actions. 

§  162.  The  laws  of  association  are  again  divided 

Higher    and 

lower  laws  of  into  higher  and  lower.     The  lower  are  those  which 

association.  .  ... 

are  presented  to  us  in  the  acquisitions  of  sense  and 
consciousness,  and  which  are  reproduced  by  the  representative 
imagination  and  the  uncultured  memory.  These  are  the  relations 
of  time  and  space.  As  they  are  more  obvious  and  natural,  they 
require  little  of  higher  culture  or  discipline.  They  are  also 
developed  earliest  in  the  order  of  time,  and  are  common  to  the 
whole  race.  The  relations  of  likeness  and  of  contrast  form  an 
intermediate  class  between  the  natural  and  the  philosophical ; 
being  now  present  in  the  one,  and  then  largely  represented  in 
the  other.  The  higher  are  the  relations  of  cause  and  effect ;  in- 
volving means  and  end,  premise  and  conclusion,  datum  and  infer- 
ence, genus  and  species,  law  and  example — all,  in  short,  of  the 
so-called  philosophical  or  logical  relations.  All  these  are  present 
in  and  control  the  higher  imagination  and  the  more  developed 
processes  of  thought.  The  higher  relations  of  thought  and  of 
the  creative  imagination  are  so  diverse  from  the  lower  relations 
of  sense,  that  they  often  supersede  and  displace,  and  sometimes 
even  cross  and  contradict  them.  In  sense-perception  and  con- 
sciousness, objects  are  conjoined,  just  as  they  happen  to  present 
themselves  in  space  or  in  time.  The  mechanical  memory  or 
imagination  servilely  reproduces  them  under  precisely  the  same 
relations  in  which  they  were  originally  presented  and  known. 
But  thought  and  the  higher  imagination  take  the  objects  thus 
accidentally  conjoined,  and  recombine  and  reproduce  them  under 
relations  that  are  higher.  Whenever  objects  are  habitually  con- 
joined under  such  relations,  they  will  be  persistently  associa- 
ted with  and  represented  by  them,  so  far  even  as  to  exclude  the 
combinations  presented  to  sense-perception.  3y  such  excess, 


§  162.  CONDITIONS  AND  LAWS  OP  REPRESENTATION.  251 

those  striking  idiosyncracies  of  imagination  and  memory  can 
be  accounted  for  which  are  designated  by  the  vaguely-used  term, 
absent-mindedness.  The  absent-minded  person  is  one  who  has 
become  so  habitually  indifferent  and  inattentive  to  the  objects 
which  address  his  senses,  through  preoccupation  from  a  roving 
imagination  or  abstracted  thought,  that  his  senses  seem  often  to 
be  unused,  and  his  memory  to  be  utterly  untrustworthy.  He 
becomes  sublimely,  or  perhaps  ridiculously,  indifferent  to  £he 
common  relations  of  common  objects  and  events. 

As  the  higher  may  take  the  place  of  the  lower  relations,  so 
the  lower  may  exclude  or  displace  the  higher.  The  constant  or 
even  the  frequent  conjunction  of  objects  and  phenomena  may 
in  consequence  be  mistaken  for  their  necessary  relations  or 
essential  conditions  or  constituents.  A  savage,  who  should  see 
gunpowder  exploded  by  an  electric  spark,  would  associate  the 
whole  of  the  electric  apparatus,  and  perhaps  even  the  words  and 
dress  of  the  operator,  with  the  occurrence  of  the  explosion,  and 
take  the  combination  to  be  made  by  a  necessary  connection  of 
things.  The  ignoramus  who  sees  a  conjurer  perform  certain  ma- 
nipulations, or  hears  him  repeat  the  words  of  some  incantation  in 
connection  with  a  surprising  feat,  unites  the  two  by  an  associa- 
tion so  inveterate  as  to  believe  the  one  is  the  cause  of  the  other. 
The  manifold  and  inveterate  superstitions  that  have  been  so 
readily  accepted  and  so  tenaciously  retained,  are  in  this  way  to 
be  explained.  Startling  or  noticeable  events  have  occurred 
together  by  a  merely  casual  connection,  which  have  been  hence- 
forward associated  under  the  relations  of  cause  and  effect ;  as  in 
the  case  of  success  in  battle,  the  healing  of  disease,  the  removal 
of  an  epidemic,  the  termination  of  drought,  the  cessation  of  an 
eclipse,  or  the  acceptable  performance  of  some  religious  rite. 

Nor  are  errors  of  this  sort  confined  to  uncultu  red  and  ignorant 
races  or  uneducated  men.  Men  of  quick  association  and  ready 
suggestion,  even  if  they  attain  the  highest  culture  in  many  di- 
rections, often  scorn  that  discipline  to  philosophical  thinking  of 
which  they  stand  in  special  need,  because,  from  the  very  quick- 
ness of  their  power  to  combine,  they  are  most  liable  to  mistake 
the  suggestions  of  their  various  and  ready  wit  for  the  sober  and 
solid  relations  of  thought. 

The  lower  associations— those  of  constant  or  frequent  conjuno 


252  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §162. 

tion — are  most  observable  when  they  strongly  affect  our  feelings. 
Objects  which  are  in  themselves  indifferent,  or  which  ought  to  be 
and  would  otherwise  be  positively  offensive,  excite  the  intensesi 
liking  or  misliking,  simply  because  they  have  been  connected 
with  objects  which  in  their  essential  nature  are  fitted  to  please 
or  displease  us.  The  remembrance  of  a  journey,  or  some  other 
event  of  our  personal  history,  is  always  unwelcome,  because  it 
was  connected  in  our  experience,  and  is  therefore  associated  in 
our  thoughts,  with  some  serious  disappointment  or  calamity. 
The  sight  of  the  surgeon  who  saved  our  life  by  performing  a 
painful  operation,  is  not  always  agreeable,  however  sincere  may 
be  our  gratitude.  Certain  persons  are  very  pleasing  or  very 
displeasing,  because  they  bring  to  mind  memories  or  thoughts 
which  we  cherish  or  reject. 

A  dress  of  the  newest  fashion  may  at  first  be  singular  and  un- 
attractive. But  soon  it  is  generally  worn  by  those  who  are 
attractive  in  appearance,  graceful  and  refined  in  manners,  and 
high  in  social  position.  It  is  thereupon  regarded  as  highly  graceful 
and  agreeable  in  itself,  and  no  other  is  tolerable.  It  is  not  long 
before  it  becomes  common,  and  this  detracts  somewhat  from  its 
factitious  attractions.  When  it  is  worn  obtrusively  by  the  filthy 
and  vulgar,  and  becomes  conspicuous  in  connection  with  persons 
who  are  rightfully  disagreeable,  it  is  time  that  the  fashion  should 
change,  or  that  some  other  novelty  should  appear,  in  order  to 
relieve  the  associations  of  the  fashionable  world  from  the  offen- 
sive taint  of  commonness  and  vulgarity. 

The  moral  influence  of  accidental  associations  is  still  more 
worthy  of  attention,  for  their  power  for  evil  as  well  as  their 
capacity  for  good:  Pleasing  manners,  high  intellectual  culture, 
the  attractions  of  wealth  and  position,  may  be  and  often  are 
connected  with  libertine  principles  and  easy  morals,  and  thus 
become  powerful  aids  and  instruments  of  vice  and  corruption. 
The  drunken  revel  may,  by  the  force  of  associations  of  this  kind, 
not  only  be  endured  as  less  disgusting,  but  it  may  be  gloried  in 
by  the  aspirant  after  high  society,  as  the  sign  of  gentlemanly 
breeding  and  fashionable  life.  The  horrors  of  the  first  cigar 
and  the  first  debauch  are  greatly  alleviated  by  manifold  sugges- 
tions that  the  experience  of  both  are  necessary  to  constitute  the 
gentleman. 


§  162.          CONDITIONS  AND  LAWS  OF  REPRESENTATION.  253 

The  force  of  casual  associations  is  in  no  particular  more  con- 
spicuous than  in  its  influence  upon  language.  A  deed  that  is 
abhorrent  to  the  conscience  and  offensive  to  the  judgment  and 
feelings  of  right-minded  and  plain-speaking  men,  is  more  than 
half  reconciled  to  the  moral  feelings,  and  perhaps  is  installed 
among  the  virtues,  by  softening  or  dignifying  the  appellations  by 
which  it  is  named — that  is,  by  designating  it  by  words  that  suggest 
associations  of  respectability  and  honor.  Men  seek  to  keep  down 
or  to  avoid  associations  of  disgust  or  abhorrence  by  the  device 
of  euphemistic  terminology.  It  is  not  always  true  that  '  vice 
loses  half  its  evil  by  losing  all  its  grossness ; '  for  the  very  gross- 
ness  which  is  its  natural  manifestation  and  result,  is  sometimes 
the  best  defence  of  society  against  the  corruption  to  which  it 
tends. 

The  power  of  epithets  and  names  to  awaken  pleasant  or  un- 
pleasant associations  is  well  illustrated  in  the  history  of  parties 
and  the  practice  of  partisans.  A  party  that  is  encumbered  by 
an  epithet  or  appellation  of  odious  associations  or  disagreeable 
origination,  hastens  to  disencumber  itself  of  an  appendage  that  is 
more  fatal  than  the  shirt  of  Nessus ;  while  its  opponents  are  as 
eager  and  determined  that  it  shall  retain  the  damaging  reproach. 
The  skillful  application  of  epithets  like  Wliig  and  Tory,  Malig- 
nant and  Roundhead,  Girondists  and  the  Mountain,  Conservative 
and  Radical,  is  often  more  efficient  with  the  populace  than  the 
most  convincing  arguments  or  the  most  persuasive  eloquence. 
Agreeable  associations,  through  the  subtle  reaction  of  language, 
have  not  only  palliated — they  have  even  recommended  the  most 
contemptible  follies,  the  most  outrageous  violence,  and  the  most 
abominable  crimes. 

Even  philosophy  herself,  though  professing  to  be  subject  to  thought-relations 
only,  is  by  no  means  exempt  from  the  influence  of  casual  associations  operating 
through  this  same  medium  of  words.  It  is  often  more  effective,  even  in  the 
schools,  to  apply  an  epithet,  as  sensuous  or  spiritual,  empirical  or  rational,  unsel- 
fish or  utilitarian,  than  it  is  to  disprove  an  analysis  or  answer  an  argument :  to 
give  an  opinion  an  odious  name,  or  apply  a  contemptuous  epithet,  than  to  con- 
sider its  evidence  or  refute  its  reasons.  The  soberest  and  best-governed  men  are 
more  or  less  affected  by  individual  associations  in  their  tastes,  their  preferences, 
their  manners,  their  reading,  their  companions,  their  politics,  and  their  faith. 
We  could  not  be  wholly  aloof  or  exempt  from  their  influence  if  we  would.  We 
would  not  if  we  could;  for,  in  so  doing,  we  should  forego  much  of  our  individu- 
ality, and  of  that  which  makes  our  individuality  dear.  But  it  is  the  interest  and 


254  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  163. 

duty  of  every  man  so  far  to  regulate  the  influence  of  such  associations,  that  he 
do  not  become  the  easy  victim  or  the  abject  slave  of  chance  and  arbitrary  cir- 
cumstances. Whatever  is  right  and  true  cannot  be  disagreeable,  when  it  is  sus- 
tained, adorned,  and  hallowed  by  associations  that  are  only  attractive.  Indeed, 
it  is  not  till  the  reason  and  conscience  rule  so  completely  over  the  whole  man  as 
to  transform  and  elevate  even  his  individual  and  casual  associations,  that  the 
education  of  the  man  is  complete,  and  his  character  has  attained  that  harmony 
and  perfection  of  which  it  is  capable. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

REPRESENTATION. (1.)    THE    MEMORY,   OR    RECOGNIZING    FAC- 
ULTY. 

Having  considered  the  conditions  and  laws  of  the  representa- 
tive power,  we  proceed  to  apply  the  results  of  our  inquiries  to  the 
explanation  of  the  principal  modes  in  which  its  activity  is  ex- 
erted— to  the  so-called  faculties  of  memory,  phantasy,  and  imagi* 
nation.  The  memory  comes  first  in  order. 

§  163.  An  act  or  state  of  memory  has  already  been 

The  elements      ,„,,,.          -i  •   i        i  -11 

essontiai  to  an  denned  to  be  that  m  which  the  essential  elements  ot 

act  of  memory.  . 

an  act  of  previous  cognition  are  more  or  less  per- 
fectly re-known,  with  the  relations  essential  to  each.  These 
elements  are  not  all  recalled  with  the  same  distinctness,  and 
hence  there  are  varieties  of  memory ;  but  it  is  essential  to  an  act 
of  memory  that  some  portion  of  each  of  these  elements  and 
relations  should  be  recalled  and  re-known. 

The  total  complex  of  object  and  relations  may  be  recalled  more 
or  less  perfectly,  or  each  of  the  constituent  elements  may  be  more 
or  less  vividly  represented. 

First :  The  object  of  the  original  act  may  be  recalled  with  a 
greater  or  less  completeness  of  its  elements  or  parts,  and  this 
whether  it  be  a  thought-object,  or  a  sense-object.  Completeness 
or  incompleteness  in  this  particular  usually  attracts  the  attention, 
and  marks  the  memory  as  strong  or  weak. 

Second :  The  original  act  of  the  mind  in  the  first  apprehension 
may  also  be  more  or  less  perfectly  recalled.  I  see  a  face  in  a 
crowd.  I  recall  it  perfectly,  and  know  that  I  have  seen  it  before  •, 
but  I  cannot  revive  a  single  vestige  of  myself  as  viewing  it,  only 


§  163.  REPRESENTATION. — THE  MEMORY.  255 

that  I  did  thus  view  it  I  am  certain  by  direct  knowledge.  And 
yet  we  must  have  this  recollection  of  our  previous  psychical 
activity,  or  we  cannot  be  said  to  remember  it  at  all.  This  certain 
knowledge  may  vary  from  the  vaguest  possible  impressions  of  oui 
subjective  state,  to  the  most  vivid  and  circumstantial  review  of 
each  one  of  its  constituent  elements. 

Third :  The  time  when  the  object  was  previously  known  may 
be  more  or  less  perfectly  recalled.  If  I  remember  an  object 
viewed  or  experienced  half  an  hour  ago,  I  may  recall  the  leading 
events  which  have  happened  to  me  from  the  present  moment 
backward  to  the  original  act  of  acquiring  this  knowledge.  If  it 
was  yesterday,  or  a  month  since,  I  can  generally  recall  the  events 
that  were  just  before  and  after  it,  can  connect  it  with  the  present 
by  more  or  fewer  intervening  occurrences,  and  can  fix  the  date ' 
so  far  as  to  know  that  it  was  in  a  certain  month  of  a  certain 
year ;  the  attendants  of  which  dates  I  can  recover  with  more  or 
less  fulness. 

In  some  cases,  the  event  stands  isolated  in  the  dim  and  unde- 
termined past.  In  others,  it  may  not  be  wholly  isolated  from  the 
events  which  preceded,  accompanied,  or  followed,  but  yet  it  can 
scarcely  be  said  to  be  united  with  the  present  by  any  connecting 
series  of  events  that  intervene. 

Fourth  :  The  place  where,  may  be  more  or  less  perfectly  re- 
called and  recognized.  The  place  where,  is  a  phrase  which  de- 
notes the  adjacent  and  surrounding  physical  objects  in  their  spa- 
tial relations,  which  form  the  background  and  the  setting  of  every 
object  perceived  or  every  act  of  the  person  who  remembers. 
Every  object  previously  observed,  every  act  of  my  own  in  ob- 
serving it,  when  itself  recalled,  will  bring  back  this  accompany- 
ing setting  more  or  less  perfectly. 

Fifth :  The  knowledge  of  the  real  existence  or  of  the  previous 
perception  of  remembered  objects  may  also  vary  in  the  degree  of 
accuracy  or  confidence  with  which  it  is  held.  For  this  simple 
knowledge  no  other  explanation  can  be  given,  than  that  the 
mind  is  competent  to  its  exercise.  The  question  is  sometimes 
asked,  Why  do  we  trust  our  memory  ?  To  this  philosophers  have 
sought  to  give  an  answer  by  enumerating  certain  grounds  or  cri- 
teria— as  that  the  object  must  be  clear,  or  that  the  image  recalled 
must  represent  or  agree  with  the  reality.  But  all  these  criteria, 


256  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §164. 

or  grounds,  are  merely  other  words  or  phrases,  which  express  no 
more  than  the  act  of  knowledge  itself. 

But  does  the  mind  always  know,  i.  e.,  remember,  with  equal 
certainty  ?  Does  it  not  sometimes  distrust  its  own  act  in  remem- 
bering ?  We  answer :  When  we  distrust  our  own  act  of  memory, 
it  is  we  ourselves  who  are  not  certain.  We  seek  to  be  certain ; 
sometimes  we  succeed,  and  pass  from  the  condition  of  painful 
'doubt  into  that  of  confident  knowledge.  The  object  which  was 
vaguely  recalled  now  stands  vividly  and  distinctly  before  the  eye 
of  the  mind.  But  the  clearness  and  distinctness  of  the  objects 
are  not  the  real  causes  which  effect,  or  the  logical  grounds  on 
which  we  rest  our  positive  knowledge.  The  term  distinct  and 
distinctly,  objectively  describe  the  subjective  certainty,  but  do  not 
account  for  or  justify  it. 

"  But  do  we  not  sometimes  offer  reasons  to  satisfy  or  prove  to 
ourselves  that  what  we  remember  must  have  been  a  fact  ?"  We 
do  often  enumerate  the  circumstances  which  assure  us  that  we 
cannot  be  mistaken,  but  not  as  logical  reasons  to  justify  the  con- 
clusion that  we  are  in  the  right.  We  bring  them  up  as  particu- 
lars on  which  we  dwell  with  attention,  for  the  purpose  of  re- 
creating a  more  complete  and  vivid  picture  of  the  past.  In  this 
sense  we  are  said  to  refresh  our  memory — as  a  witness  in  court  is 
asked  or  urged  to  do,  when  one  or  another  circumstance  is 
repeated  in  his  hearing,  or  he  is  left  to  his  own  associations  to 
revive  the  past.  We  may  indeed  urge  this  number  of  remem- 
bered particulars  as  reasons  why  others  should  trust  our  accuracy 
because  our  own  remembrance  is  so  full  and  detailed,  but  not  as 
grounds  or  criteria  for  our  own  confidence.  For  this  confidence 
we  can  give  no  other  reason  than  that  we  find  ourselves  pos- 
sessed of  and  using  the  power  for  this  very  function,  which  is 
to  remember.  And  yet  this  act  is  exercised,  as  is  every  other  act 
of  the  soul,  with  varying  and  unequal  energy. 

§  164.  An  exact  and  technical  description  of  mem- 
Mem  orv    tech- 
nicaiiy  defined,  orv  would  be  the  following.     Memory  is  a  modmca 

Relation  of  me-      .  J  J 

mory  to  repre-  tion  oi  representation.  Ihe  representative  power  fur- 
nishes the  materials  for  the  memory,  according  to 
the  laws  of  association.  These  objects  being  furnished,  the  mind 
in  memory  knows  them  by  an  act  of  recognition.  More  briefly, 
representation  recalls,  memory  recognizes.  The  soul,  in  represen- 


§164.  REPRESENTATION. — THE  MEMORY.  257 

tation,  is  passive,  blind,  and  mechanical,  proceeding  according  to 
fixed  and  inevitable  laws,  by  methods  or  processes  which  occur 
beyond  or  out  of  consciousness.  The  soul,  in  memory,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  active,  intelligent,  and  rational.  The  distinction 
between  representation  and  memory,  so  far  as  our  actual  expe- 
rience is  concerned,  is  rather  ideal  than  real,  for  representation 
passes  into  memory  by  an  inevitable  certainty,  through  the  easi- 
est, the  most  natural,  and  usually  the  most  unnoticed  transitions. 

The  psychologists  of  the  associational  school  provide  for  only 
half  the  process — that  of  representation.  The  recognition  they 
attempt  to  explain,  but  unsuccessfully,  by  the  chemistry  of  asso- 
ciation— i.  e.,  by  the  union  or  blending  of  a  present  with  a  past 
mental  state.  Representation  and  memory  may,  however,  with 
propriety  and  advantage,  be  ideally  considered  apart.  Repre- 
sentation conceived  apart  from  memory,  may  begin  with  a  mental 
image,  and  by  the  laws  of  its  own  activity  call  up  another,  and 
still  another,  till  all  at  once  the  intelligence  asserts,  "The  object 
now  pictured  I  have  known  before  as  a  reality."  Or  the  object 
may  be  material,  and  perceived  by  the  senses.  In  such  a  case, 
representation  at  once  supplies  a  completing  image  or  thought, 
concerning  which  memory  pronounces,  "  This  real  object  I  have 
perceived  before." 

Memory,  on  the  other  hand,  as  distinguished  from  representa- 
tion, is  an  act  of  knowledge.  To  know,  requires -objects,  and  the 
discernment  of  their  relations.  The  objects  of  memory  are 
peculiar,  in  that,  as  has  just  been  explained,  representation  pre- 
sents or  suggests  more  or  fewer  of  them.  The  relations  under 
which  they  are  known  are,  as  we  have  shown  at  length,  those  of 
previous  apprehension  by  myself  in  some  determinate  state  of 
knowledge  or  feeling,  at  some  previous  time,  and  in  some  par- 
ticular place. 

B;it  while  we  thus  distinguish  in  an  ideal  way  the  passive  and 
the  active  element  in  memory,  both  must  be  taken  into  con- 
sideration in  order  to  explain  its  phenomena;  for,  in  these 
phenomena,  each  of  these  elements  modifies  the  other,  and  both 
must  be  present.  The  two  are  related  in  memory  somewhat  as 
sensation  proper  and  perception  proper  are  combined  in  the  acts 
of  sense-perception — the  one  is  inversely  as  the  other.  In 
certain  acts  and  powers  of  memory,  the  passive  or  representac 


258  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  165. 

tional  element  is  prominent  and  conspicuous;  in  others,  the 
active  and  rational  is  most  apparent.  In  the  two  cases,  we  dis- 
tinguish the  memory  as  spontaneous  and  intentional  In  sponta- 
neous memory,  the  object  remembered,  spontaneously  occurs  to  the 
mind.  In  intentional  memory  it  is  distinctly  sought  after  until  it  is 
found.  In  spontaneous  memory,  the  representative  faculty  is 
prominent,  while  the  intelligence  waits  only  to  give  its  recognition 
to  what  is  presented  to  its  attention.  In  intentional  memory, 
the  intelligence  is  active,  being  aware  that  some  object  has  been 
previously  known,  to  recall  which,  it  summon.,  the  energies  of 
the  representative  power. 

The  distinction  of  these  two  kinds  of  memory  is  so  obvious, 
and  is  so  readily  observed,  that  separate  terms  for  the  two  have 
been  employed  in  common  life,  and  are  found  in  many  lan- 
guages. The  Greeks  have  ftvifpuq  and  dvd/j.^fft<; ;  the  Latins, 
memoria  and  recordatio  (cf.  Oic.  de  Prov.  43) ;  the  English, 
memory  and  recollection. 

§  165.  In  the  spontaneous  memory,  there  are 
natural  aptitudes  and  disabilities,  which  can  only  be 
referred  to  some  original  differences  of  the  mental 
constitution.  That  such  differences  exist,  is  an  unquestioned  fact. 
For  example :  one  person  hears  a  series  of  unconnected  names 
recited,  and  can  repeat  them  all  in  the  precise  order  in  which 
they  were  uttered,  while  another  can  recall  only  now  and  then 
one.  The  eye  of  another  runs  down  a  column  of  figures,  and  he 
can  copy  the  whole  from  memory,  while  his  companion  can 
scarcely  recall  a  single  one  of  the  whole.  One  individual  can 
learn  a  page  of  prose  or  poetry  simply  by  reading  or  hearing  it 
read  but  once,  while  another  can  with  difficulty  repeat  correctly  a 
single  line  or  sentence.  That  these  differences  are  natural,  is 
manifest  from  this,  that  they  cannot  be  remedied  by  any  effort  or 
art.  No  discipline  of  the  attention,  and  no  determination  of  the 
will,  can  enable  one  who  is  strikingly  deficient,  to  acquire  the 
jX>wer  of  this  simple  and  effortless  memory.  That  the  defect  lies 
in  some  original  incapacity  to  fix  the  attention  with  interest  upon 
the  objects  to  be  recalled,  and  not  in  the  power  of  representation, 
is  confirmed  by  observation  as  well  as  by  the  general  law  of  the 
workings  of  the  representative  power.  That  the  strength  or 
weakness  of  this  kind  of  memory  is  not  owing  to  the  physical 


§  165.  REPRESENTATION. — THE  MEMORY.  259 

strength  or  weakness  of  the  organs  of  sense,  but  to  the  mental, 
energy  and  the  moral  direction  with  which  these  physical  instru* 
ments  are  applied,  is  abundantly  manifest.  Analogous  to  differ- 
ences in  the  spontaneous  memory — if,  indeed,  they  are  not  ex- 
amples of  it — are  the  varying  capacities  to  recall  a  musical  air 
so  as  to  repeat  it,  or  to  revive  the  image  of  the  voice  or  manners 
of  another  so  as  to  imitate  them. 

The  relations  which  are  employed  in  the  natural  memory  are 
most  conspicuously  those  of  simple  contiguity  and  succession. 
All  memory  begins  with  these  relations,  because  our  earliest  en- 
ergies and  acquisitions  commence  with  objects  of  this  kind.  In 
other  words,  there  is  a  natural  memory  of  space  and  of  time,  or, 
as  we  may  say  in  a  somewhat  narrow  sense,  there  is  a  natural 
memory  of  the  eye  and  of  the  ear.  In  some  persons  the  memory 
of  the  eye,  while  in  others  the  memory  of  the  ear,  is  conspicuous. 
Those  who  are  remarkable  for  the  memory  of  the  eye,  are  such 
as  can  readily  and  vividly  picture  in  the  mind  the  details  of  the 
front  or  fagade  of  a  building,  the  outline  and  filling  in  of  some 
remarkable  tree,  the  features  of  the  face  of  an  acquaintance 
or  friend,  the  page  of  a  book  as  presented  to  the  eye.  Those 
distinguished  for  the  memory  of  the  ear,  can  recall  successions  of 
sounds — if  they  have  a  musical  ear,  of  musical  notes — strings  of 
names,  or  words  when  connected  in  significant  sentences.  They 
can  repeat  dates  of  uninteresting  events,  and  retail  long  stories 
whether  tedious  or  amusing.  Superiority  in  the  one  kind  of 
memory  is  not  necessarily  accompanied  by  superiority  in  the  other. 

A  good  spontaneous  memory,  or,  as  it  is  often  called,  a  good 
memory  for  facts  and  dates,  is  generally  and  correctly  regarded 
as  a  great  intellectual  convenience,  rather  than  as  a  decisive  indi- 
cation of  intellectual  power.  It  is  doubtless  true,  that  many  per- 
sons are  distinguished  by  natural  memory,  who  are  inferior  in  ca- 
pacity for  discrimination  and  reasoning.  It  has  become  a  com- 
mon observation,  Great  memory,  little  common  sense.  In  such 
cases,  the  power  of  discerning  the  higher  relations  may  be  either 
originally  deficient,  or  it  may  be  neglected  in  consequence  of  the 
predominant  use  of  the  power  of  apprehending,  and,  of  course, 
of  recalling  objects  in  the  relations  that  are  most  obvious.  A  very 
energetic  mind  may  be  very  limited  in  its  apprehensions,  and 
wDl,  of  course,  be  energetic  though  limited  in  its  memory.  It  is 


260  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  105  O. 

noticeable,  also,  that  persons  who  become  eminent  in  those 
achievements  which  are  proper  to  the  higher  intellectual  powers 
and  relations,  are  in  early  life  usually  distinguished  for  the 
strength  and  reach  of  their  memory  of  both  eye  and  ear. 

There  are  not  a  few  men  who  carry  into  the  maturity  of  age, 
and  into  the  most  striking  efforts  of  judgment  and  reasoning,  a 
memory  that  is  always  clear,  vivid,  prompt,  exact,  and  universal 
— a  memory  that  never  forgets  a  name,  or  loses  a  date,  or  is  at 
fault  in  its  recital  of  facts.  Such  are  the  men  of  universal 
knowledge,  at  least  in  some  special  department  of  study  and  re- 
search, like  Scaliger  in  ancient  learning  and  criticism;  Pascal, 
"  that  prodigy  of  parts;"  Niebuhr  in  history  and  statistics;  A.  von 
Humboldt  in  physics  both  celestial  and  terrestrial ;  Hitter  in  geo- 
graphy ;  Goethe  in  literature  and  art.  The  reason  that  in  these 
exempt  cases  the  higher  or  intellectual  memory  does  not  displace 
the  lower,  is  that  the  employments  or  studies  of  the  individual 
require  him  to  be  conversant  with  details  as  well  as  with  their 
thought-relations,  with  facts  as  well  as  with  principles.  Hence, 
the  higher  memory  aids  rather  than  hinders  the  lower  ;  the  ac- 
quisitions of  the  quick  eye  and  ear  being  fastened  and  fixed  by 
the  secondary  processes  of  reflex  thought. 

The  intentional  §  165  a.  The  phenomena  of  the  so-called  intentional 
or  voluntary  memory  next  require  attention.  They 
are  characterized  by  the  single  feature,  that  the  objects  remem- 
bered, are  sought  for  by  a  conscious  effort  or  act.  '  But  how 
can  this  be  possible?  The  very  statement  involves  a  contra- 
diction in  language  and  an  impossibility  in  fact.  If  the  mind 
seeks,  intending  to  find  or  recover  an  object  lost,  then  it  already 
knows  what  it  seeks  for.  In  other  words,  the  mind  must  already 
have  remembered,  in  order  to  be  put  upon  the  act  of  endeavor- 
ing to  recall.'  In  reply,  we  observe  that,  if  every  object  re- 
membered were  in  all  cases  remembered  with  equal  fulness  and 
vividness,  then  the  objection  would  hold.  If,  in  order  to  re- 
member at  all,  the  mind  must  recall  with  equal  energy  and 
success  all  which,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  is  capable  of 
being  reproduced,  then  'to  intend  to  remember'  would  be 
plainly  precluded  by  our  'having  already  remembered.'  But 
this  is  by  no  means  true.  The  object  remembered  may  be  con- 
sidered as  an  object — whether  object-object  or  subject-object  is 


§  165  a.  REPRESENTATION. — THE  MEMORY.  261 

immaterial — out  of  all  conscious  relation  to  the  mjnd  viewing  or 
caring  for  it,  or  as  an  object  in  such  relation. 

Taken  in  the  first  sense,  the  object  is  capable  of  being  recalled 
vaguely  in  its  general  outlines,  and  confusedly  in  its  details,  or  it 
can  stand  out  before  the  eye  of  the  mind  with  the  sharpest  out- 
line, and  inclose  a  perfect  picture  of  distinct .  minutice.  But  the 
object  of  memory  is  more  appropriately  the  object  in  some  rela- 
tion to  the  previous  activity  of  the  soul  in  some  given  place  and 
at  some  given  time.  This  more  complex  object  admits  also  of  every 
variety  and  degree,  from  the  lowest  up  to  the  highest  conceivable 
fulness  and  freshness.  This,  of  course,  provides  for  the  possibility 
that  the  mind  should,  in  its  acts  of  recovery,  go  through  all  the 
intermediate  steps  of  effort  and  intention,  till  the  whole  object,  as 
objective  and  subjective,  is  fully  represented  and  recognized. 

In  recovering  the  whole,  we  may  begin  with  that  which  is 
eminently  objective.  We  may  set  off  with  some  object  which 
we  are  sure,  in  our  previous  knowledge,  had  some  relation  to  that 
•  which  we  seek — as  the  dates  of  some  events  that  occurred  before 
or  after  the  one  which  we  look  for,  the  names  which  we  have 
learned  in  connection  with  the  one  required ;  and  we  may  dwell 
upon  these  till  the  date  or  name  required  occurs  to  the  mind,  and 
we  recognize  it  with  welcome.  Or  we  may  begin  with  the  sub- 
jective element.  We  may  recall  ourselves  in  the  act  of  being 
charged  with  certain  duties  or  commissions — where  we  were,  what 
we  were  doing,  of  what  we  were  thinking,  how  we  were  feeling, — 
till  by  this  means,  the  missing  element  reappears  to  make  the 
recognition  complete. 

It  has  already  been  asserted,  that  in  the  intentional  memo- 
ry the  active  element  is  most  prominent.  This  is  true.  But  it 
happens,  from  this  very  circumstance,  that  the  passive  element  is 
thereby  brought  into  more  conspicuous  and  striking  contrast.  It 
would  seem  to  delight  to  tantalize  us  by  the  wantonness  of  its 
caprices,  as  now  it  flashes  those  very  thoughts  upon  our  mental 
vision  which  we  are  most  desirous  to  hide  out  of  sight,  and  then 
as  provokingly  hides  those  which  we  are  most  desirous  to  un- 
cover. At  one  time  we  are  disappointed  by  a  strange  and 
unaccountable  forgetfulness  of  the  most  familiar  objects;  at 
another,  we  are  surprised  by  the  appositeness  and  the  affluence 
of  unexpected  remembrances. 


262  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §166. 

The  sole  and  single  function  which  the  mind,  as  active,  can 
exert,  is  to  apply  the  force  of  its  attention  to  the  object  or  objects 
which  it  is  certain  have  reference  to  that  which  is  sought  for. 
To  these  only  have  we  access.  These  only  we  have  at  our  com- 
mand. Energetic  and  prolonged  attention  is  all  that  the  mind 
can  do  at  the  moment  of  .remembering. 

§  166.  Memory  is  sometimes  defined  as  exclusively 
j  the  power  to  retain,  or  the  conservative  faculty.     So 


ose'  Hamilton  treats  it,  and  exalts  this  supposed  power 
into  a  separate  faculty  co-ordinate  with  the  power  to  reproduce 
and  the  power  to  represent.  But  when  we  inquire  for  the  defini- 
tion or  statement  of  the  function  which  this  so-called  retentive 
faculty  performs,  we  find  that  no  function  of  the  sort  is  known 
to  consciousness.  Indeed,  it  is  conceded  by  Hamilton,  that  what- 
ever is  done  by  this  faculty  is  performed  unconsciously. 

No  one  holds  that,  during  the  interval,  the  mind  acts  upon 
the  object,  or  with  respect  to  it.  It  does  not  exert  itself  to  hold 
it,  or  concern  itself  with  it  in  the  least.  The  expression  to  re- 
tain is  purely  metaphorical,  and  simply  carries  the  thoughts 
over  the  period  that  intervenes  between  the  moment  when  it  was 
first  apprehended,  and  the  moment  when  it  is  known  a  second 
time.  As  Locke  pertinently  and  truly  observes,  "  This  laying 
up  of  our  ideas  in  the  repository  of  the  memory  signifies  no 
more  than  this,  that  the  mind  has  a  power,  in  many  cases,  to 
revive  perceptions  which  it  has  once  had,  with  this  additional 
perception  annexed  to  them,  that  it  has  had  them  before.  And 
in  this  sense  it  is  that  our  ideas  are  said  to  be  in  our  memories, 
when,  indeed,  they  are  actually  nowhere  ;  but  only  there  is  an 
ability  in  the  mind,  when  it  will,  to  revive  them  again,''  etc.  (Es« 
say  B.  ii.,  c.  x.,  §  2). 

It  is  only  by  a  metaphor  that  objects  remembered  can  be  spoken 
of  as  preserved  in  some  repository  or  hiding-place,  in  drawers, 
pigeon-holes,  or  other  compartments.  Nor  can  the  doctrine  be 
maintained,  that  in  the  act  of  original  acquisition  the  fibres  of 
the  brain  are  disposed  in  a  certain  position,  which  they  retain,  or 
at  least  retain  the  tendency  to  reassume.  Nor  can  it  be  proved, 
as  the  followers  of  Herbart  contend,  that  each  object  as  appre- 
hended, or  the  state  of  mind  as  excited  to  action  by  the  object. 
is  retained  ever  afterward  in  a  condition  of  tension,  which;  on  * 


§  166.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   MEMORY.  263 

fit  occasion,  springs  forth  into  the  presence  of  the  conscious  spirit. 
Now,  if  all  these  representations  are  figurative  or  metaphorical, 
the  power  to  retain,  or  the  doctrine  of  a  retentive  faculty,  must 
be  purely  figurative  also ;  the  fact  which  it  describes  being 
merely  that  under  certain  conditions,  and  in  obedience  to  certain 
laws,  the  mind  can  represent  and  recognize  its  previous  know- 
ledge. The  mind  that  can  do  this  in  regard  to  the  greatest 
number  of  objects,  after  the  lapse  of  the  longest  time,  is  said  to 
have  the  most  retentive  memory. 

Cicero  (De  Oratore,  i.,  5),  Plato  and  others,  have  compared  the  mind  in  pre- 
serving what  it  had  known,  to  a  tablet  on  which  characters  were  impressed  or 
engraved.  Notwithstanding  the  cautious  and  accurate  definition  of  Locke  which 
we  have  cited,  we  find  him,  in  the  same  chapter,  indulging  in  such  language  as 
this :  "  The  pictures  drawn  in  our  minds  are  laid  in  fading  colors,  and,  if  not 
sometimes  refreshed,  vanish  and  disappear."  .  ..."  In  some,  it  [the  mind]  re- 
tains the  characters  drawn  on  it  like  marble ;  in  others  like  freestone ;  and  in 
others,  little  better  than  sand."  .  .  .  .  "  We  oftentimes  find  a  disease  quite  strip 
the  mind  of  all  its  ideas,  and  the  flames  of  a  fever  in  a  few  days  calcine  all  those 
images  to  dust  and  confusion,  which  seemed  to  be  as  lasting  as  if  graved  in 
marble."  Again,  the  ideas  are,  "very  often  roused  and  tumbled  out  of  their 
dark  cells  into  open  daylight  by  some  turbulent  and  tempestuous  passion." 
Hamilton  justly  observes,  that,  "of  all  these  sensible  resemblances,  none  is  so 
ingenious  as  that  of  Gassendi  to  the  folds  of  a  piece  of  paper  or  cloth/'  But 
Hamilton  does  not  notice  wherein  the  truth  and  ingenuity  of  the  resemblance 
mainly  lies,  viz.,  the  circumstance  that  the  mind,  like  the  cloth,  retains  nothing 
but  the  capacity  to  assume  the  same  folds  and  in  the  same  combination  and  order 
which  they  had  originally  taken. 

We  observe  here,  that  as  the  goodness  of  the  memory  may 
respect  it  as  spontaneous  or  intentional ;  so  we  describe  it  in  the 
one  case  as  ready,  and  in  the  other  as  tenacious.  The  one  does 
not  exclude  the  other.  If  a  person  is  able  to  recall  every  object 
that  is  required,  at  once,  without  effort  or  delay,  his  memory  is 
called  ready  ;  but  it  is  not  necessarily  implied  thereby  that  he  is 
deficient  in  the  capacity  to  retain,  but  only  that  he  is  quick  and 
apt  to  recall.  On  the  other  hand,  when  one  is  slow  to  recall, 
and  yet  sure  to  do  so  by  the  application  of  energetic  attention 
if  sufficient  time  is  allowed,  his  memory  is  tenacious ;  by  which 
is  intended  only  that  the  object  is  certain  to  be  recovered — not 
that  there  is  a  special  capacity  to  retain,  which  may  be  possessed 
in  eminent  measure,  to  which  may  or  may  not  be  added  another 
special  capacity  to  recall. 

The  power  to  retain,  in  the  sense  explained,  implies  the  powei 


264  THE   HUMAN  INTELLECT.  §  166, 

to  lose,  in  the  same  sense;  the  capacity  to  remember,  suggests 
that  there  is  the  liability  to  forget.  The  fact  that  we  do  forget, 
most  men  will  not  venture  to  question  or  deny.  It  is  not,  how- 
ever, easy  to  explain  why  we  forget,  or  to  detail  the  process  by 
which  we  lose  an  acquisition  beyond  recall.  In  one  aspect  of  the 
case,  it  would  seem  that  we  ought  never  to  remember — that  the 
rnind  might  be  supposed  to  be  limited  to  the  contemplation  of 
the  new  objects  which  the  presentative  power  can  bring  before 
it.  But  when  we  have  become  acquainted  with  the  possibility 
and  the  conditions  of  representation,  it  would  seem  that  we 
ought  to  forget  nothing,  but  that  it  must  always  be  within  the 
reach  of  every  related  thought  to  bring  back  all  its  correlates. 
A  moment's  reflection,  however,  must  convince  us  that,  were  it 
possible  for  us  to  recall  every  object,  the  recall  could  never  in 
fact  take  place  simply  for  want  of  time.  To  recall  the  acquisi- 
tions of  a  few  years,  would  require  as  long  a  time  as  to  make  the 
original  acquirement,  even  if  to  represent  were  our  sole  occupa- 
tion. But  it  is  not  solely  for  lack  of  time  or  opportunity  that 
we  do  not  recall.  Often,  when  both  are  furnished,  the  related 
thoughts  do  not  spontaneously  present  themselves. 

The  phrase  to  forget  is  variously  employed — sometimes  posi- 
tively, at  others  comparatively ;  now  absolutely,  and  then  rela- 
tively; or,  as  Stiedenroth  has  it,  "Forgetting  admits  of  several 
degrees,  or  stadia.  The  first  is  a  momentary  displacement  of  an 
object  apprehended  which  is  yet  certain  to  spring  back  as  soon 
as  the  object  displacing  it  is  withdrawn.  The  second  is  a  com- 
parative withdrawal  of  the  attention,  as  when  we  divert  our 
mind  from  a  painful  sensation,  or,  as  we  say,  forget  it,  in  labor 
or  play.  The  third  is  when  an  object  will  not  present  itself 
spontaneously,  but  we  must  bethink  ourselves  in  order  to  recover 
it.  The  fourth  is  when  we  bethink  ourselves  in  vain.  The  fifth 
is  when  it  has  vanished  for  so  long  a  time  that  we  question 
whether  we  can  by  any  effort  bring  it  back.  The  sixth,  when 
we  conclude  that  it  is  absolutely  certain  that  we  shall  never 
recall  it  again."  (Psychologic,  Berlin,  1824,  p.  82). 

It  is  questioned  by  many  whether  this  absolute  forgetfulness  is 
possible — whether,  at  least,  we  are  authorized  to  affirm  that  the 
soul  can  lose  beyond  recovery  any  thing  which  it  has  known.  It 
is  certain  that  knowledge  which  has  remained  out  of  sight  for  a 


§  167.  REPRESENTATION. THE  MEMORY.  265 

long  period  has  often  been  suddenly  recovered.  Even  acquisi- 
tions that  were  the  least  likely  to  be  remembered,  and  which, 
previously,  were  never  known  or  suspected  to  have  been  made, 
come  up  as  though  the  soul  were  inspired  to  receive  strange  re- 
velations of  its  capacities  and  acquirements. 

Numerous  examples  have  occurred  within  the  observation  of 
the  curious,  and  not  a  few  are  recorded  in  history.  The  well- 
known  and  often  quoted  story,  which  was  originally  published  by 
Coleridge  in  his  Biograpliia  Li'teraria,  is  in  substance  as  follows : 
A  servant-girl  in  Germany  was  very  ill  of  nervous  fever  accom- 
panied with  violent  delirium.  In  her  excited  ravings,  she  re- 
cited long  passages  from  classical  and  rabbinical  writers,  which 
excited  the  wonder  and  even  terror  of  all  who  heard  them,  the 
most  of  whom  thought  her  inspired  by  a  good  or  evil  spirit. 
Some  of  the  passages  which  were  written  down  were  found  to 
correspond  with  literal  extracts  from  learned  books.  When  in- 
quiries were  made  concerning  the  history  of  her  life,  it  was 
found  that,  several  years  before,  she  had  lived  in  the  family  of 
an  old  and  learned  pastor  in  the  country,  who  was  in  the  habit 
of  reading  aloud  favorite  passages  from  the  very  writers  in 
whose  works  these  extracts  were  discovered.  These  sounds,  to 
her  unintelligible,  were  so  distinctly  impressed  upon  her  memory, 
that,  under  the  excitement  of  delirious  fever,  they  were  repro- 
duced to  her  mind  and  uttered  by  her  tongue. 

Rev.  Timothy  Flint,  in  his  Recollection,  records  of  himself, 
that,  when  prostrated  by  malarial  fever,  he  repeated  aloud  long 
passages  from  Virgil  and  Homer  which  he  had  never  formally 
committed  to  memory,  and  of  which,  both  before  and  after  his 
illness,  he  could  repeat  scarcely  a  line. 

Dr.  Rush,  in  his  Medical  Inquiries,  says  that  he  once  attended 
an  Italian,  who  died  in  New  York  of  yellow  fever,  who  at  first 
spoke  English,  at  a  later  period  of  his  illness  French,  and,  when 
near  his  end,  Italian  only.  He  records  also  that  he  was  in- 
formed by  a  Lutheran  clergyman,  that  old  German  immigrants 
whom  he  attended  in  their  last  illness,  often  prayed  in  their 
native  tongue,  though  some  of  them,  he  was  certain,  had  not 
spoken  it  for  many  years. 

§  167.  Such  facts  illustrate  the  connection  of  the  {Mr*0" 
bodily  condition  with  the  phenomena  of  memory,  of  which  a 


266  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  167, 

partial  explanation  has  already  been  given  (§  153).  They  con- 
firm two  positions,  to  which  daily  experience  and  observation 
both  testify.  The  first  is,  that  the  extent  and  reach  of  our 
memory  is  greatly  affected  by  our  bodily  condition  at  the  time 
when  we  acquire.  Every  object  which  we  apprehend,  when  in  a 
certain  condition  of  health,  we  can  afterward  recall,  and  this  we 
can  do  as  readily  and  as  easily  as  we  breathe.  On  other  occa- 
sions, if  we  are  wearied  by  labor,  exhausted  by  watching,  or 
prostrated  by  pain,  the  book  which  we  read,  the  conversation  in 
which  we  take  part,  the  incidents  which  happen,  become  almost  a 
blank  to  us  when  we  seek  to  recover  them. 

It  is  in  place  here  to  notice  the  circumstance,  that  certain  parts 
of  the  day,  and,  with  some  persons,  certain  seasons  of  the  year, 
are  most  favorable  to  the  successful  acquisition  of  possessions  for 
the  memory.  In  the  evening,  and  especially  late  at  night,  the 
attention  may  seem  to  be  as  intently  fixed  upon  the  objects  which 
are  to  be  retained,  as  in  the  morning,  and  the  intellectual  force 
may  appear  to'  be  more  energetic.  But  it  not  infrequently  hap- 
pens that  the  acquisitions  of  the  previous  evening,  which  seemed 
to  be  so  distinct  and  promised  to  be  so  permanent,  have  well-nigh 
vanished  in  the  morning,  and  require  to  be  reviewed  to  be  made 
useful  or  sure.  It  is  easy  to  see  how,  after  the  analogies  furnished 
by  these  phenomena,  can  be  explained  the  frequently  evanescent 
character  of  the  acquisitions  which  are  made  under  the  influence 
of  wine  or  opium,  as  also  the  fact  that  the  men  of  the  strongest 
memories  have  often  been  either  water-drinkers,  or  men  of  strong 
heads,  not  easily  disturbed  by  stimulants. 

The  second  position  is,  that,  whether  we  can  recall  what  we 
may  be  said  to  have  acquired,  depends  also  very  largely — at  times 
altogether — upon  the  bodily  condition  at  the  moment  of  our  de- 
sire or  effort  to  remember.  Under  the  inspiration  of  joyous 
health  or  the  stimulus  of  exciting  disease,  all  that  we  have  ever 
experienced,  witnessed,  or  learned,  comes  back  to  us  as  if  a  good 
genius  were  pouring  forth  at  our  bidding  all  that  we  need  or  de- 
sire to  recall.  Again,  in  seasons  of  extreme  weakness,  we  can- 
not recover  the  most  familiar  names,  incidents,  or  dates,  and  our 
most  common  knowledge  refuses  to  serve  us. 

It  is  pertinent  here  to  refer  to  the  many  cases  of  the  sudden 
and  almost  entire  loss  of  memory,  some  of  which  are  as  striking 


§  167.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   MEMORY.  267 

as  those  of  its  development  to  unwonted  energy.  A  lady  of  su- 
perior endowments  and  culture  was  for  several  days  exposed  t<? 
suffering  and  fear,  in  a  storm  at  sea  which  terminated  in  the 
wreck  of  the  vessel.  A  severe  and  protracted  illness  was  the 
consequence,  from  which  she  slowly  recovered.  After  her  ap- 
parent restoration  to  complete  health,  it  was  found  that  the  best 
part  of  her  acquired  knowledge  was  gone,  and  it  was  never  af- 
terward recovered.  An  attack  of  apoplexy  has  been  said  to  ef- 
face all  remembrance  of  the  events  of  some  definite  period  of 
the  life. 

Both  classes  of  facts — those  which  illustrate  the  dependence 
on  certain  bodily  conditions  of  both  the  power  to  acquire  with 
effect  the  materials  for  the  memory,  and  the  power  to  recall 
them  with  ease — can  be  accounted  for  by  the  general  views  al- 
ready expressed.  The  varying  condition  of  the  body  through 
the  several  sensations  of  which  it  is  the  occasion,  enters  into  the 
experiences  of  consciousness,  and  furnishes  a  most  important  ele- 
ment in  them  all.  It  is  the  constant  background  on  which  all 
the  mental  activities  are  projected,  the  never-failing  setting  with 
which  every  one  of  them  must  be  accompanied.  When  these 
sensations  are  of  a  certain  description,  they  are  the  normal  and 
favoring  accessories  of  the  other  actings  of  the  soul.  If  they 
are  abnormal,  disturbed,  or  unpleasant,  the  mind  is  so  absorbed 
or  distracted  by  the  presence  of  these  obtrusive  sensations,  that 
it  has  little  energy  to  spare  for  other  objects,  and  no  capacity  to 
steady  the  attention  upon  them. 

Again,  the  bodily  condition  may  also  present  sensations  which 
so  far  disturb  and  distract  the  attention,  as  to  allow  no  time  for 
the  passive  memory  to  respond  to  any  call ;  may  so  hurry  the 
mind  from  one  object  of  present  sense-experience  to  another,  as 
to  leave  no  opportunity  for  the  representing  power  to  thrust  in  a 
single  mental  image ;  or,  again,  these  sensations  may  be  so  utterly 
dissimilar  to  any  which  have  been  before  experienced,  as  to  sug- 
gest no  image  of  the  past.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  this  com« 
plex  of  sensations  may  be  most  favorable  to  the  easy  and  almost 
exclusive  action  of  the  passive  or  spontaneous  memory,  and  may 
be  so  akin  to  the  states  which  we  would  recall,  as  to  be  all  lu- 
minous and  living  with  objects  that  suggest  those  which  we  wel- 
come or  seek  after. 


268  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  168, 

To  the  question,  whether  the  circumstances  of  the  soul  can 
ever  so  far  be  changed  as  to  empower  it  to  recover  all  the  past, 
the  analogies  suggested  by  these  facts  would  lead  us  to  reply : 
(1.)  Under  no  circumstances  whatever  can  it  be  supposed  that 
the  soul  shall  recover  what  it  has  not  in  some  sense  made  its  own 
by  the  energetic  action  of  its  attentive  consideration.  That  is  not 
a  proper  object  of  memory  to  the  soul,  which  has  not  been  taken 
up  into  its  life  by  its  efficient  acquisition.  (2.)  It  is  supposable 
that  the  conditions  might  be  furnished  of  recalling  all  the  past 
thus  denned,  under  the  actings  of  laws  which  are  well  known  to 
us.  We  have  only  to  suppose  that  a  vehicle  or  subject  of  the 
required  psychical  experiences — call  them  sensations,  if  you  will, 
and  the  occasion  of  them  a  new  body — should  be  furnished,  and 
these  would  of  themselves  give  back  every  element  of  past  ac- 
quisition or  experience  to  which  they  might  be  analogous. 

§  168.  With  the  progress  and  development  of  the 
mJm™y™\ol  powers  and  activities  of  the  soul,  the  memory  itself 
explained.  advances  through  separate  stages,  each  of  which  pre- 
pares the  way  for  that  which  follows,  and  becomes  its  natural  and 
logical  condition.  The  memory  of  the  infant  differs  from  the 
memory  of  the  child ;  the  memory  of  the  child  differs  from  that 
of  the  youth ;  the  memory  of  the  man,  in  each  of  the  several 
stages  of  active  life,  differs  from  that  in  the  stage  which  succeeds 
it.  In  general,  the  memory  of  the  person  in  active  life  differs 
from  the  memory  of  old  age.  The  memory  of  the  artist  is  very 
unlike  the  memory  of  the  mathematician.  The  memory  of  the 
erudite  and  disciplined  thinker  differs  greatly  in  its  objects  and 
its  laws,  from  the  memory  of  the  person  who  has  had  little  cul- 
ture from  reading  or  thought.  Hence,  there  exist  many  clearly 
distinguishable  varieties  of  memory ;  if  we  make  nothing  of  the 
fact  that  every  individual  must  have  a  type  of  memory  which 
arises  from  those  individual  habits  of  thought  and  feeling  which 
he  can  share  with  no  other  person. 

Besides  those  varieties  of  memory  which  are  common  to  all 
men  in  the  successive  periods  of  their  life,  there  are  the  special 
peculiarities  which  result  from  one's  pursuit  or  profession.  The 
historian  remembers  facts  and  dates  ;  the  philosopher,  principles 
and  laws.  The  artist  remembers  landscapes  and  faces ;  the  wit 
and  the  story-teller,  never  forget  a  successful  jest  or  a  capital 


§  168.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   MEMORY.  269 

anecdote.  These  habits  of  memory,  as  they  are  called,  often 
grow  stronger  till  they  become  fixed  beyond  the  power  of  change. 
Persons  distinguished  for  great  intellectual  power  in  certain 
directions,  very  often  complain  of  a  serious  defect  of  memory 
which  they  cannot  account  for.  Such  one-sided  habits  and  de- 
fects are  not  peculiar  to  the  memory  only,  but  pertain  equally  ta 
all  the  activities  of  the  soul :  the  condition  of  memory  is  energy 
in  the  original  activities ;  these  involve  attention  to  the  objects  to 
be  remembered  ;  attention  springs  from  an  active  interest  in 
these  objects ;  this  prevailing  interest  follows  the  habits  which 
constitute  and  express  the  character. 

We  return  again  to  the  fact  that  these  varieties  of  memory  are 
not  only  distinguished  by  the  character  of  the  objects  remem- 
bered, but  also  by  the  method  and  relations  under  which  they 
are  recalled.  The  things  which  the  child  remembers  not  only 
differ  from  those  which  an  older  person  recalls,  but  they  are  re- 
called in  a  child's  order,  and  by  the  relations  which  are  proper 
to  a  child.  The  same  is  true  of  the  devotee  to  any  study  or  pur- 
suit so  far  as  special  intellectual  habits  are  'induced  by  such  a 
study  or  employment.  When  the  child  recalls  to  itself  or  recites 
to  others  a  series  of  incidents  of  which  it  has  had  experience,  it 
depicts  the  whole,  generally  in  the  order  of  time,  with  little  selec- 
tion of  materia-s  according  to  their  importance  or  their  relation 
to  any  principle  or  purpose.  The  spontaneous  memory  of  the 
eye  or  the  ear,  reproduces  the  past  solely  after  the  relations  of 
time  or  place,  with  no  rearrangement  or  selection  of  the  same, 
such  as  would  be  suggested  by  the  desire  for  the  clearer  appre- 
hension of  the  hearer,  or  by  the  bearings  of  the  story  upon  his 
intellect  or  his  feelings. 

This  is  very  conspicuous  in  the  memories,  and  especially  in  the 
narratives  of  uneducated  persons.  Thus,  Dame  Quickly  recites 
the  story  of  her  wrongs  in  the  following  fashion  :  "  Thou  didst 
swear  to  me  upon  a  parcel-gilt  goblet,  sitting  in  my  dolphin 
chambsr,  at  the  round  table,  by  a  sea-coal  fire,  upon  Wednesday 
in  Whitsun-week,  when*the  prince  broke  thy  head  for  liking  his 
father  to  a  siagin^-man  of  Windsor ;  thou  didst  swear  to-  me 
then,  as  I  was  washing  thy  wound,  to  marry  me,  and  make  me 
my  lady  thy  wife."  (Henry  IV.,  2d  part,  Act  ii.,scene  i. ;  cf.  S.  T. 
Coleridge,  The  Friend,  Sec.  ii.,  Essay  iv.)  No  finer  opportunity 


270  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  168. 

is  furnished  for  observing  this  variety  in  the  order  and  method 
'which  characterize  the  memories  of  different  persons,  than  in  lis- 
tening to  the  testimony  of  different  witnesses  in  a  court  of  jus- 
tice, concerning  the  same  transaction. 

The  memory  of  the  young  is  usually  more  ready ;  that  of  the 
adult  is  more  tenacious.  This  is,  in  part,  owing  to  the  greater 
physical  vivacity  of  youth,  which  affects  the  actings  of  the  soul. 
The  vivacious  old  man  is  as  quick  to  remember  as  he  is  to  appre- 
hend or  judge;  while  the  torpid  and  phlegmatic  child  is  as  slow 
in  his  memory  as  he  is  in  his  reasonings  and  inferences.  The 
difference,  however,  is  not  merely  a  difference  of  temperament  or 
animal  spirits,  but  has  its  ground  in  the  character  of  the  relations 
which  usually  predominate  at  each  of  these  periods  of  life.  Ob- 
jects that  are  recalled  by  the  relations  of  space  and  time  and  of 
obvious  resemblance,  present  themselves  promptly,  if  they  are 
remembered  at  all;  but  these  relations  are,  from  their  very 
nature,  limited  to  but  few  individual  objects.  Hence,  the  groups 
which  are  connected  by  such  relations  are  sooner  set  aside  and 
forgotten,  and  are  displaced  by  others.  The  relations  of  thought, 
however,  especially  those  which  are  founded  on  wide-reaching 
principles  or  laws,  are  in  their  very  nature  less  obvious.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  principles  themselves  are  few,  and  are 
constantly  before  the  mind.  When  these  are  once  mastered,  they 
are  illustrated  in  every  fact;  they  are  exemplified  in  every 
instance.  By  means  of  them  we  can  prophesy  and  construct  the 
future  as  well  as  explain  and  interpret  the  past.  These  few 
bonds  of  association,  when  they  control  the  memory,  give  to  it 
perfect  security  in  and  command  over  its  possessions. 

The  men  of  universal  memory  are  those  who  combine  most 
happily  the  ready  memory  of  facts  and  events  with  the  te- 
nacious memory  of  truths  and  laws.  They  are  those  whose 
spontaneous  memory  is  not  displaced,  but  rather  aided,  by  the 
development  of  the  rational  memory  which  sees  in  facts  the 
illustrations  of  the  higher  relations  of  philosophic  truth.  They 
hold  fast  the  acquisitions  of  youth  and  of  old  age  by  the  perma- 
nence of  principles  which  are  as  old  as  the  universe  and  as  new 
as  the  latest  experiment  by  which  they  are  verified. 

The  memory  of  the  ancients,  if  we  may  believe  all  the  stories 
which  are  told  of  the  achievements  of  some  of  their  more  dis- 


§  168.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   MEMORY.  271 

tinguished  men,  surpassed,  in  some  respects,  the  average  attain- 
ments of  the  moderns.  It  is  not  difficult  to  believe  this  to  have 
been  true,  from  what  we  know  of  the  memory  of  those  who  most 
resemble  them  in  the  circumstances  of  their  lives,  and  the  disci- 
pline of  their  intellects.  Their  attention  was  far  less  distracted  by 
a  variety  of  objects  than  is  the  case  with  the  moderns.  The  facts 
in  science,  literature,  chronology,  and  history,  which  they  were 
required  to  remember  were  far  fewer  than  those  which  burden 
the  memory  of  the  modern  scholar.  More  than  all,  they  relied 
far  less  than  we  do  upon  writing,  memoranda,  and  books,  to 
preserve  what  they  desired  to  retain.  They  committed  their 
acquisitions  to  their  own  power  to  recall  them.  Conversation 
and  repetition  were  practiced  far  more  generally  by  them  than 
by  us.  What  was  heard  by  the  ear  from  the  living  teacher,  was 
repeated  and  discoursed  of  by  his  interested  scholars,  till  it 
became  a  part  of  their  very  being. 

The  attention  of  the  infant  is  at  first  occupied  with  the  sensible 
world.  It  sees  colors  which  delight  the  eye,  it  hears  sounds  which 
captivate  the  ear.  It  is  long  before  it  unites  these  separate  per-  characteristics 
cepts  into  individual  objects,  and  still  longer  before  it  discrimi-  periods  oTTife 
nates,  by  special  attention,  one  object  from  another.  Later  still, 
it  learns  to  notice  with  any  effect  its  own  inner  experiences  and  activities.  The 
relations  of  before  and  now  are  of  still  later  evolution.  But  all  these  separate 
elements  must  be  familiarized  by  attention  before  an  act  of  memory  can  be  at  all 
definite  and  complete,  inasmuch  as,  whatever  suggestions  of  representation 
there  may  be,  there  ean  be  no  proper  act  of  memory  till  all  these  elements  are 
recognized. 

'  The  germinant  memory  of  the  infant  must  be  exceedingly  limited,  because  its 
materials  are  very  scanty;  the  chief  force  of  its  intellectual  life  being  expended 
in  acquiring  rather  than  in  recalling.  So  far  as  it  remembers  at  all,  its  memory 
is  passive ;  intentional  memory  being  as  yet  undeveloped,  for  the  infant  is  the 
passive  child  of  nature,  and  the  stream  of  its  memory  runs  side  by  side  with  the 
course  of  its  objective  life.  The  infant  remembers,  as  animals  remember,  just 
that,  and  only  that,  which  the  objects  of  sense-perception  recall  to  their 
thoughts. 

The  acquisition  and  the  use  of  language  opens  the  way  for  the  higher  memory, 
though  obviously  in  its  first  beginnings.  The  right  use  of  words,  and  of  short 
sentences,  requires  that  the  child  should  connect  names  with  distinctly  discerned 
objects,  and  should  express  its  wishes  and  thoughts  by  short  sentences.  But 
by-and-by  the  child  finds  that  it  forgets — that  it  has  not  the  knowledge  which  it 
once  possessed.  It  cannot  recall  the  right  name  or  phrase  which  it  wishes  to  use, 
and  which  it  knows  it  has  previously  spoken.  It  is  impelled  by  its  wishes  to  re- 
call the  forgotten  object,  and  begins  to  practice  the  arts  of  the  intellectual,  or  ac- 
tive memory.  But  these  occasions  and  efforts  are  at  best  so  infrequent,  and  of  so 
little  importance,  that  they  train  the  intentional  memory  in  a  slight  degree  only. 


272  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  169. 

It  is  by  tasks  imposed  by  others  directly  and  indirectly,  that  the  soul  is  disciplined 
to  the  exercise  of  this  higher  memory,  and  its  various  activities  are  developed. 
The  child  is  taught  written  language.  It  learns  the  alphabet  and  spelling  by  the 
eye,  or  brief  sentences  or  verses  by  the  ear.  Children  are  charged  also  with  com- 
missions to  execute,  with  services  of  labor  or  courtesy  which  may  not  be  forgot- 
ten, and  with  endless  lessons  from  books  to  prepare  and  repeat. 

By  degrees,  this  pupil  of  others  becomes  his  own  taskmaster:  he  passes  from 
the  lower  discipline  of  the  memory,  which  others  enforce,  to  the  higher,  which 
he  imposes  upon  himself.  The  intentional  memory,  which  has  been  trained  by 
others,  he  cultivates  for  himself.  He  makes  his  own  purposes ;  he  proposes  his 
own  ideals;  he  knows  what  he  must  learn  in  order  to  accomplish  these  purposes 
and  to  realize  these  ideals;  he  appoints  to  himself  his  own  lessons;  tasks  his  own 
intellect  to  consider,  and  his  own  efforts  to  retain  what  he  foresees  he  shall  have 
occasion  to  know  and  to  have  at  command.  According  as  this  training  of  the 
attention  is  more  or  less  complete,  so  does  his  memory  become  more  or  less  per- 
fectly subject  to  his  control,  and  from  the  passive  spontaneity  of  early  life,  passes 
into  the  active  energy  of  maturer  years.  This  memory  of  manhood  is  also  char- 
acterized by  the  predominance  of  thought-relations  and  of  rational  purposes. 
The  spontaneous  memory  of  early  life  is  not  thereby  displaced ;  the  original  apti- 
tudes of  the  memory  of  both  eye  and  ear  are  not  necessarily  set  aside.  But  just 
so  far  as  one  thinks  and  acts  like  a  man,  just  so  far  will  he  remember  as  a  man, 
and  not  merely  as  a  child — that  is,  by  the  aid  of  those  higher  relations  which 
thought  requires,  and  which  definite  aims  and  rational  activities  necessarily  in- 
volve. The  memory  of  the  man  is  not  only  intentional,  but  it  is  also  rational. 

When  the  man  advances  from  the  busy  noon  toward  the  quiet  evening  of  life, 
his  exclusive  interest  in  the  objects  which  have  absorbed  his  manhood  is  relaxed, 
either  through  physical  infirmity,  or  the  success  which  satiates,  and  perhaps  the 
disappointment  which  wearies  a  man  with  life.  In  place  of  an  intent  and  ab- 
sorbed devotedness  to  the  present,  there  is  a  more  frequent  review  of  the  past. 
Old  scenes  are  described,  old  books  are  read,  old  companions  are  talked  of,  old 
stories  are  repeated.  For  this  reason,  recent  objects  are  so  readily  forgotten,  and 
the  singular  contrast  is  furnished  in  the  memory  peculiar  to  the  aged — most  tena- 
cious of  objects  and  events  that  occurred  longest  ago,  and  readily  forgetful,  if  te- 
nacious at  all,  of  those  that  were  most  recent. 

The  education  §  169.  The  methods  of  education  should  recognise 
of  the  memory.  faQ  wige  krrangements  of  nature  in  developing 
and  maturing  the  memory.  In  the  earlier  periods  of  life  the 
spontaneous  memory  should  be  stimulated  and  enriched  by 
appropriate  studies.  The  child  should  learn  stories,  verses, 
poems,  facts,  and  dates,  as  freely  and  as  accurately  as  it  can  be 
made  to  respond  to  such  tasks.  During  this  early  and  objective 
period,  it  should  learn  as  many  languages  as  is  possible  in  the 
circumstances,  or  as  is  desirable  for  its  future  pursuits.  Espe- 
cially should  it  learn  those  languages  which  can  be  taught  in 
conversation,  or  acquired  by.  contact  with  those  who  speak  them 


§  170.         REPRESENTATION. — THE  MEMORY.  275 

freely  and  well.  If  the  elements  of  the  ancient  languages  are 
taught  so  early  in  life,  they  should  be  taught,  as  far  as  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  is  possible,  by  similar  methods.  But  as  the 
higher  and  rational  powers  awake  to  action,  every  acquisition 
that  has  been  made  by  the  lower  and  more  obvious  associations, 
should  be  secured  against  loss  by  recasting  it  and  relearning 
it  as  it  were,  after  the  relations  which  are  higher  and  more  philo- 
sophical. English  children  who  learn  to  speak  French,  German, 
or  Italian  fluently  in  early  life,  may  lose  their  acquisitions 
almost  entirely,  unless  these  are  fixed  by  a  grammatical  study  of 
the  same  languages  at  a  later  period  of  life.  The  large 
accumulations  of  facts  and  dates,  as  in  geography  and  history, 
which  are  made  very  early  by  many  carefully-trained  children, 
and  with  the  greatest  ease  on  their  part,  are  liable  to  be  effaced, 
and,  as  it  were,  swept  clean  out  from  the  memory,  unless  they 
are  secured  against  loss  by  reviewing  and  rearranging  them 
under  the  new  and  higher  relations  which  the  development  of 
the  reason  makes  possible. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  anticipate  the  development  of  the  re- 
flecting powers,  by  forcing  upon  the  intellect  studies  which 
imply  and  require  these  capacities,  is  to  commit  the  double  error 
of  misusing  the  time  which  is  especially  appropriate  to  simple 
acquisition,  and  of  constraining  the  intellect  to  efforts  which  are 
untimely  and  unnatural.  The  modern  practice  of  occupying  the 
minds  of  children  with  the  reasons  of  things,  i.  e.,  with  laws, 
principles,  etc.,  in  the  form  of  compends  of  astronomy,  natural  or 
mental  philosophy,  natural  theology,  etc. — is  one  that  cannot  be 
too  earnestly  deprecated,  or  too  soon  abandoned  by  those  who 
would  train  the  mind  according  to  the  methods  of  nature. 

§  170.  The  cultivation  of  the  memory  is  a  subject 
which  has  been  earnestly  discussed  by  many  writers,  tio™6  ofuTtltK 
and  is  of  practical  interest  to  all  those  who  are  bent  mo!Sy;  7ane~ 
on  self-improvement,  or  are  devoted  to  the  education 
of   others.     Many   complain   of   a  general   defect  of  memory 
Others  are  especially  sensible  of  painful  failures   in  respect  to 
certain   classes   of   objects,   as  names,   dates,   facts   of  history, 
sentences  or  passages  from  authors  familiarly  read.  The  question 
is  often  anxiously  propounded,  How  can  these  general  or  -special 
defects  be  overcome  ? 

12* 


274  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §170. 

The  conclusions  which  we  have  reached  in  respect  to  the  nature 
and  laws  of  memory,  suggest  the  only  practical  rules  which  can 
be  attained.  These  rules  may  be  summed  up  in  the  directions : 
'  To  remember  any  thing,  you  must  attend  to  it ;  and  in  order  ta 
attend,  you  must  either  find  or  create  an  interest  in  the  objects  to 
be  attended  to.  This  interest  must,  if  possible,  be  felt  in  the 
objects  themselves,  as  directly  related  to  your  own  wishes,  feel- 
ings, and  purposes,  and  not  to  some  remote  end  on  account  of 
which  you  desire  to  make  the  acquisition.'  It  should  never  be 
forgotten,  that  in  memory,  the  soul  can  recall  no  more  than  it 
makes  its  own — no  more  than,  in  acquiring,  it  constructs  or 
creates  as  a  spiritual  product  by  its  own  activity. 

The  late  Sir  Thomas  Fowell  Buxton  advised  his  sons  in  the 
following  golden  words  :  "  What  you  do  know,  know  thoroughly. 
There  are  few  instances  in  modern  times  of  a  rise  equal  to  that 
of  Sir  Edward  Sugdeu.  After  one  of  the  Weymouth  elections, 
I  was  shut  up  with  him  in  a  carriage  for  twenty-four  hours.  I 
ventured  to  ask  him,  What  was  the  secret  of  his  success ;  his 
answer  was:  'I  resolved,  when  beginning  to  read  law,  to  make 
every  thing  I  acquired  perfectly  my  own,  and  never  to  go  to  a 
second  thing  till  I  had  entirely  accomplished  the  first.  Many  of 
my  competitors  read  as  much  in  a  day  as  I  read  in  a  week ;  but, 
at  the  end  of  twelve  months,  my  knowledge  was  as  fresh  as  on 
the  day  it  was  acquired,  while  theirs  had  glided  away  from  their 
recollection.' "  (Memoirs  of  Sir  Thomas  F.  Buxton,  chap,  xxiv.) 

Numerous  devices  have  been  contrived  in  order  to  aid  the 
mind  so  to  make  its  acquisitions  as  to  secure  them  against  loss, 
and  to  bring  them  readily  to  hand  when  required.  They  were 
not  unknown  to  the  ancients,  as  is  evident  from  Cicero,  De  Or, 
ii.,86-88;  Ad  Herenn.,  iii.,  16-24;  Quinct.,  Instit,  x.,  1,  11-26. 
They  all  rest  upon  a  common  assumption  or  principle,  viz.,  that 
it  is  possible,  by  means  of  arbitrary  associations,  so  to  connect 
what  one  desires  to  remember  with  a  series  or  scheme  of  objects, 
artificially  arranged  or  actually  existing,  that  they  can  be  readily 
and  certainly  suggested  to  the  mind.  Some  teachers  of  mnemon- 
ics employ  a  scheme  of  geometrical  figures,  as  squares  or  tri- 
angles. For  example :  if  a  person,  in  listening  to  a  discourse  or 
lecture,  should,  as  the  speaker  proceeds,  connect  the  leading 
thoughts  or  divisions  with  the  panes  of  glass  in  a  window-sash, 


§170.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   MEMORY.  275 

or  with  the  panels  of  a  door,  he  would  avail  himself  of  the  geome- 
trical method,  which  addresses  the  eye,  through  the  space-relations 
of  visible  objects.  Often  these  systeras  have  sought  to  aid  the 
memory  of  dates  by  the  letters  of  the  alphabet;  each  pre- 
senting some  number,  and  being  employed  in  forming  artificial 
syllables,  such  as  could  be  readily  attached  to  names  of  persons  or 
places  distinguished  in  history.  Mnemonic  verses  and  tables 
have  been  furnished  for  many  of  the  important  objects  with 
which  every  student  is  expected  to  be  familiar,  as  the  names  of 
the  sovereigns  of  the  great  kingdoms  and  empires,  grammatical 
paradigms  and  rules,  logical  formulae,  etc.,  etc. 

A  correct  estimate  of  the  value  of  all  artificial  memory  may 
be  summed  up  as  follows :  The  natural,  as  opposed  to  the  artifi- 
cial memory,  depends  on  the  relations  of  sense  and  the  relations 
of  thought, — the  spontaneous  memory  of  the  eye  and  the  ear 
availing  itself  of  the  obvious  conjunctions  of  objects  which  are 
furnished  by  space  and  time ;  and  the  rational  memory,  of  tho?e 
higher  combinations  which  the  rational  faculties  superinduce  upon 
these  lower.  The  artificial  memory  proposes  to  substitute  for  the 
natural  and  necessary  relations  under,  which  all  objects  must 
present  and  arrange  themselves,  an  entirely  new  set  of  relations 
that  are  purely  arbitrary  and  mechanical,  which  excite  little  or 
no  other  interest  than  that  they  are  to  aid  us  in  remembering. 

It  follows,  that  if  the  mind  tasks  itself  to  the  special  effort  of 
considering  objecis  under  these  artificial  relations,  it  will  give 
less  attention  to  those  which  have  a  direct  and  legitimate  interest 
for  itself.  Its  energies,  instead  of  following  in  easy  obedience  the 
leadings  of  nature,  will  be  forced  to  efforts  that  are  constrained 
and  artificial.  Whatever  dexterity  is  acquired  by  these  intellec- 
tual gymnastics,  must  be  gained  at  the  expense  of  that  rhythmical 
power  which  always  rewards  those  activities  in  vhich  art  follows 
nature.  The  wonderful  feats  of  memory  which  are  occasionally 
adduced  as  resulting  from  the  latest  new  device  in  mnemonics, 
are  the  fruits  of  much  time,  labor,  and  enthusiasm.  Had  the 
same  time,  labor,  and  enthusiasm  been  expended  in  acquiring 
knowledge  by  means  of  the  ordinary  appliances,  the  acquisitions 
would  have  been  many  times  more. valuable  for  the  culture  of  the 
powers  and  the  uses  of  life.  Perhaps  even  the  number  of  facts 
recorded  in  the  memory  would  have  been  as  numerous. 


276  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §170. 

There  are  occasions  when  the  artificial  memory  is  unquestion- 
ably useful.  It  may  serve  a  good  purpose  in  holding  before  the 
mind  facts  which  it  is  important  to  remember,  when  neither  the 
facts  themselves,  nor  their  relations,  present  attractions  which 
are  strong  enough  to  fix  or  hold  the  attention.  For  the  man 
whose  intellectual  force  and  interest  are  preoccupied,  it  is  often 
difficult  to  apply  the  memory  with  success  to  such  objects,  unless 
they  are  arranged  in  some  novel  relations.  The  artificial 
memory  comes  to  his  aid,  and  offers  the  service  and  assistance  of 
art  to  supplement  the  failing  forces  of  nature  ;  to  reenforce,  and  as 
it  were,  to  renew  the  spontaneous  memory  by  novel  appliances. 

But  while  we  concede  a  certain  advantage  to  the  artificial 
memory  under  circumstances  like  these,  we  must  still  hold,  with 
Coleridge  (Biog.  Literaria,  chap,  vii.),  that,  for  the  ordinary 
uses  of  the  student,  sound  logic,  a  healthy  digestion,  and  a  quiet 
conscience  are  the  proper  conditions  or  arts  of  memory. 

By  sound  logic,  is,  of  course,  intended  a  well-balanced  and 
well-trained  intellect,  which  by  original  structure  and  discipline, 
is  capable  of  fixed  attention,  clear  apprehension,  and  excited 
interest.  Without  these  conditions,  a  strong  and  trustworthy 
memory  is  impossible. 

A  healthy  digestion  is  also  requisite ;  for  if  the  digestion  is  dis- 
turbed, the  action  of  the  mind  will  be  distracted  by  those  vague 
sensations  of  d3pression  and  discomfort  which  are  inconsistent 
with  that  harmonious  interaction  of  the  powers  of  the  whole 
man,  which  is  indispensable  to  a  good  memory.  Even  though 
it  happens  that  persons  in  this  condition  are  capable  of  extra- 
ordinary energy  ia  their  mental  efforts,  these  occasions  are  yet 
certain  to  be  followed  by  longer  periods  of  listlessness  and  de- 
pression which  exclude  that  repetition  and  review  of  the  know- 
ledge which  are  quite  as  essential  as  energy  and  interest  at  the 
time  of  the  original  acquisition. 

A  clear  or  quiet  conscience  is  also  a  prime  requisite,  for  a  simi- 
lar reason.  Indigestion  and  intoxication  of  any  kind  disturb 
the  memory  by  intrusive,  uncomfortable,  and  exciting  sensa- 
tions. But  the  consciousness  of  guilt  haunts  the  spirit  with 
disquieting  self-reproach,  and  fear  of  deserved  punishment. 
Feelings  of  this  sort  do  indeed  often  stamp  upon  the  memory 
*  few  impressions  that  are  ineffaceable.  But  for  this  very 


§  170.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   MEMORY.  277 

reason  it  is  the  more  unfitted  to  attend  with  interest  or  enthu- 
siasm to  other  objects,  and  its  movements  in  all  directions  are 
enfeebled  or  depressed  by  distraction  or  constraint. 

It  is  natural,  in  this  connection,  to  notice  the  moral  conditiona 
of  a  good  memory.  The  man  who  would  have  a  strong  and 
trustworthy  memory,  must  always  be  true  to  it  in  his  dealings 
with  himself  and  with  other  men.  He  must  paint  to  his  own  im- 
agination, with  scrupulous  fidelity,  whatever  he  has  witnessed  or 
experienced.  He  must  never  so  yield  to  the  bias  of  interest  or 
passion,  as  to  strive  to  persuade  himself,  even  for  a  moment,  that 
events  were  different  from  what  he  knows  they  actually  were. 
He  must  seek  to  repeat  to  others  the  precise  words  of  what  he 
has  heard  or  read,  whenever  he  makes  communications  by  lan- 
guage. Such  a  moral  discipline  to  internal  and  external  honesty, 
both  implies  and  enforces  a  mental  discipline  to  earnest  and 
wide-reaching  attention — an  attention  which  does  complete 
justice  to  every  object  that  comes  before  it,  and  which  neither 
slights  nor  omits  any  thing  which  ought  to  be  brought  to  view. 
An  intellect  that  is  regulated  and  held  to  its  duties  by  the 
tension  of  such  a  purpose,  will  act  with  the  precision  and  cer- 
tainty of  clock-work.  Its  recollections  will  be  trusted  by  others, 
because  they  are  trusted  by  the  person  himself,  and  for  the  best 
of  reasons — because  he  is  true  to  what  he  remembers. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  person  who  is  false  to  his  fellow-men, 
ill  often  weaken  his  confidence  in  his  own  intellect,  and  may 
end  with  an  incapacity  to  distinguish  falsehood  from  the  truth. 
What  he  does  not  like  to  remember,  he  will  persuade  himself 
did  not  actually  happen,  or,  at  least,  not  in  every  particular  as 
it  spontaneously  presents  itself  to  his  view.  Then  follows,  by 
natural  consequence,  distrust  of  his  own  memory,  because  he  is 
not  sure  that  the  materials  are  at  hand  with  which  he  can  cor- 
rect his  own  omissions.  The  next  step  is,  under  the  excitement 
of  strong  passion,  to  persuade  himself  that  what  he  desirea 
should  be  true,  did  really  occur,  or  was  really  written  or  said. 
If  he  asserts  this  by  his  own  word,  he  is  the  more  strongly  com- 
mitted to  believe  it.  At  last,  he  becomes  so  false  to  the  work- 
ings of  his  own  memory,  that  he  dares  not  trust  it  himself. 

It  is  well  to  remember,  that,  while  the  liar  has  more  pressing 
need  of  a  good  memory  than  any  other  man,  he  is  of  all  meii 
the  least  likely  to  possess  it. 


278  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  171 

CHAPTER  V. 

REPRESENTATION. — (2.)    THE    PHANTASY,   OR    IMAGING    POWER. 

Prom  perfect  memory,  we  pass  through  the  several  forms  and 
degrees  of  imperfect  memory  till  we  come  to  the  phantasy. 

phantas  de-  §  ^**  ^ne  Pnantasv>  or  imaging  power,  is  that 
fined  and  mo*-  form  of  representation  which  brings  before  the  mind's 
apprehension  objects,  or,  more  exactly,  images,  as 
such,  severed  from  all  relations  of  place,  time,  or  previous  cogni- 
tion. The  best  example  of  the  exercise  of  this  power  is  furnished 
in  dreaming.  In  what  are  called  the  abnormal  or  disordered 
states  of  the  soul — as  somnambulism,  and  the  various  types  and 
degrees  of  insanity — the  phantasy  has  a  more  or  less  complete 
control.  Among  the  wakeful  and  normal  states  of  the  soul, 
reverie  is  the  purest  and  the  most  perfect  example  of  phantasy. 
The  fewer  the  relations  to  the  past  or  the  present  which  the  objects 
suggest,  the  more  complete  is  the  working  of  the  phantasy.  In 
earliest  infancy  this  power  may  be  supposed  to  be  active,  for  the 
reason  that  the  mind  has  not  yet  reached  a  condition  in  which 
memory  proper  is  possible.  In  extreme  old  age  also,  when  the 
incapacity  to  attend  to  single  objects  for  a  long  continuance  pre- 
cludes intelligent  and  effective  perception,  memory,  or  thought, 
the  phantasy  may  still  survive,  and  actively  call  up  the  pictures 
of  the  past,  simply  as  pictures,  each  recalling  the  next,  according 
to  the  conditions  and  laws  already  explained.  In  the  wakeful 
and  earnest  periods  of  the  mind's  activity,  the  exercise  of  simple 
phantasy  is  precluded,  for  the  obvious  reason,  that  at  such  times 
the  mind  is  intent  upon  some  rational  object,  which  lifts  it  above 
the  condition  of  the  passive  recipience  or  contemplation  of  pic- 
tures. And  yet,  with  the  higher  activities,  there  are  not  infre- 
quently mingled  those  approaching  to  pure  phantasy.  When 
one  object  suggests,  another  in  a  train  of  associations,  many  may 
be  recalled  without  a  single  distinct  act  of  remembrance,  and  yet 
every  one  may  be  a  transcript  from  some  reality  experienced  in 
the  past.  Each  is  recalled,  however,  not  as  a  remembered  or 
recognized  object,  but  simply  as  an  image.  When  the  highel 


§172.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   PHANTASY.  279 

functions  of  the  soul  are  wholly,  or  in  part,  put  in  abeyance,  as 
in  fainting,  fatigue,  or  sleep,  or  when  there  is  bodily  weakness,  or 
any  disturbance  of  the  nervous  equilibrium,  as  in  fever,  delirium 
or  excitement  from  liquor  or  narcotics,  or  even  in  protracted 
sleeplessness,  the  phantasy  asserts  a  more  or  less  complete 
dominion.  The  mind  is  visited  with  throngs  of  pictures,  which 
rush  so  rapidly  by  as  to  confuse  it  by  their  very  swiftness,  and  to 
oppress  it  by  a  sense  of  its  own  impotence  to  arrest  or  direct 
their  course.  When  this  condition  is  permanent,  the  mind  is 
said  to  be  the  victim  of  phantasy.  Such  a  state  is  also  called  a 
state  of  distraction — which  term  describes  the  mind's  incapacity 
to  fix  the  attention  or  detain  its  flitting  images  long  enough 
to  allow  the  exercise  of  the  functions  of  rational  memory,  in- 
vention or  thought. 

§  172.  These  conditions  of  the  soul  are  grave  prob-  The  interest  of 
lems  to  the  psychologist.  Three  suppositions  may  be  Its  Problcms- 
made  in  respect  to  them  all: — (1.)  These  states  may  be  said  to  be 
simply  abnormal  or  irregular,  recognizing  and  obeying  no  law. 
(2.)  They  may  be  set  down  as  simply  inexplicable;  suggesting 
the  existence  of  laws  which  cannot  be  discovered.  (3.)  They 
may  be  explained  in  great  part  by  the  usually  recognized  laws 
of  the  soul  in  its  normal  and  wakeful  condition.  The  probability 
is  immensely  in  favor  of  the  last.  If  the  laws  which  govern  the 
recurrence  and  representation  of  ideas  have  been  fully  and  cor- 
rectly set  forth,  they  ought  to  explain  the  phenomena  of  the 
sleeping  and  disordered  conditions  of  the  soul.  That  they  do  so, 
is  probable  for  the  following  reasons : — 

I.  The  power  of  association  operates  very  efficiently 
in  all  these  states.  In  dreaming,  somnambulism,  The  power  of 
insanity,  etc.,  etc.,  its  presence  and  powers  are  often  ^Svem  * 
most  apparent.  When  we  ask  ourselves,  Why  did  it  them  alh 
happen  that  I  had  such  or  such  a  dream  ?  it  is  often  very  easy  tc 
answer  by  a  reference  to  the  usually  recognized  laws  of  associa- 
tion. The  strange  and  unexpected  sallies  of  the  insane,  however 
wild  and  preposterous  they  may  be,  follow  some  law  of  associa- 
tion, though  it  often  leads  to  the  most  fantastic  result.  There  is 
always  some  method  in  their  madness. 


280  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  172. 

II.  The  deviations  from  the  ordinary  working  of 

r  -"  tnese  laws  can  also>  to  some  extent,  be  satisfactorily 
accounted  for. 

°f  (*•)  Tte  Powers  °f  tne  soul  ordinarily  act  in  a 
certain  conjunction  with  and  proportion  to  one 
another.  It  is  not  surprising,  that,  when  a  single  power  acts 
alone,  the  phenomena  should  differ  very  greatly  from  those  which 
result  from  the  combined  activity  of  them  all.  In  the  cases 
supposed,  self-consciousness,  rational  activity,  and  the  voluntary 
control  of  the  bodily  movements  and  the  mental  states,  are  all 
set  aside ;  and  the  associative  power  asserts,  to  a  very  large  ex- 
tent, the  possession  of  the  soul.  We  ought  Dot  to  be  surprised, 
that  a  power  ordinarily  acting  in  connection  with  the  wakeful 
reason  and  under  its  control,  should  manifest  results  unlike  those 
which  appear  when  these  regulating  elements  are  present. 

(2.)  Certain  bodily  states  are  known  greatly  to  modify  the 
actings  of  the  soul,  when  the  soul  is  wakeful  and  in  health.  It 
is  according  to  the  law  of  its  being,  that  its  action  should  be 
modified  still  more  when  the  bodily  affections  become  more  effi- 
cient and  obtrusive.  It  should  not  be  surprising  then,  that  under 
such  physical  conditions  as  sleep  and  cerebral  excitement,  even 
stranger  psychical  phenomena  should  be  manifest. 

(3.)  The  comprehensive  law  under  which  past  mental  states 
are  reproduced,  should  be  distinguished  from  the  materials  upon 
which  it  operates.  While  the  laws  of  representation  remain  the 
same,  the  conditions  under  which  they  act,  may  vary  enough  to 
account  for  every  variety  of  phenomena. 

To  the  actual  reproduction  of  an  image,  two  conditions  are 
necessary,  viz.,  its  actual  previous  presence  to  the  mind,  and  the 
existence  of  an  exciting  occasion  in  something  united  with  it  as 
an  element  of  the  mind's  previous  knowledge  or  feeling. 

In  dreaming,  insanity,  etc.,  these  conditions  are  peculiar, 
Fir*t,  in  the  states  of  distinct  and  easily-remembered  conscious- 
ness, are  present  many  elements  which  are  less  distinctly  noticed, 
because  they  are  accessory  and  subordinate.  In  the  states 
under  consideration,  those  may  be  brought  forward  either  as  the 
materials  of  phantasy,  or  as  the  mediate  suggestors  of  other 
materials.  In  every  act  of  distinct  perception,  there  is  an  ex- 
tended background  of  such  objects,  standing  out  in  the  field  of 


§  172.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   PHANTASY.  281 

view  with  more  or  less  prominence,  but  engrossing  some  share  of 
the  soul's  energy.  Any  one  of  these  objects,  under  possible 
exciting  occasions,  is  capable  of  being  recalled.  In  the  normal 
states  of  the  soul,  the  prominent  or  central  object  is  usually  re- 
called. In  an  abnormal  state,  one  or  more  of  the  accessories  may 
be  represented.  Under  the  feelings  and  purposes  of  wakefulness, 
a  certain  class  of  pictures  and  thoughts  only  may  be  certain 
to  be  thought  of.  In  dreaming,  another  set  may  present  them- 
selves ;  in  insanity,  still  another ;  and  yet  all  of  these  may 
have  been  gathered  from  the  mind's  own  experience.  Again  : 
there  are  many  conditions  of  the  soul  marked  by  little  energy  of 
attention,  as  well  as  by  the  feeble  influence  of  rational  purpose, 
in  which  the  phantasy  greatly  prevails.  In  walking,  in  driving 
for  relaxation,  in  extreme  fatigue,  in  the  transitions  from  wake- 
fulness  to  sleep  and  from  sleep  to  wakefulness,  in  the  many 
listless  hours  or  seasons  of  reverie,  there  are  multitudes  of  acts 
and  objects  which  leave  little  impression,  and  are  rarely,  if  ever, 
distinctly  brought  back  to  the  rational  and  wakeful  memory  or 
imagination,  but  of  which  any  one  may  be  recalled  under  novel 
circumstances.  Again: there  are  activities  that  have  been  ex- 
perienced previously  to  the  soul's  conscious  action.  Some  of 
these  acts  tend  to  be  reproduced,  and,  under  varying  circum- 
stances, may  return  either  as  a  principal  or  accessory  element. 
Again:  the  undefined  bodily  sense-perceptions,  or  sensations 
which  are  accessory  in  every  mental  experience,  and  are  promi- 
nent in  not  a  few — which  form  the  background  of  many,  and 
come  into  the  foreground  of  many  also,  all  tend  to  recur  again. 

The  occasions  which  control  the  presentation  and  suggestion 
of  images  in  these  abnormal  states  of  the  soul  are  also  peculiar. 
In  sleep,  all  the  organs  of  sense-perception  are  more  or  less 
quiescent,  while  the  vital  organs  are  active.  In  insanity,  etc., 
the  bodily  condition  and  activities  are  irregular.  In  both,  they 
are  greatly  unlike  those  which  are  present  in  wakefulness  and 
health.  These  peculiar  and  morbid  bodily  states  are  manifest 
to  the  soul  in  the  form  of  peculiar  sensations,  both  vital  and 
organic.  Sleep,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  is  attended  by 
a  series  of  sense-perceptions  unlike  thos3  experienced  in  wake- 
fulness.  Insanity,  in  all  its  forms  and  degrees,  is  attended  by  a 
nervous  excitement  or  depression,  which  is  revealed  to  conscious- 


282  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  173. 

ness  by  irritating  and  uncomfortable  sensations.  The  sensations 
thus  excited,  become  themselves,  in  turn,  the  excitants  of  images 
and  thoughts  kindred  to  themselves. 

A  third  consideration  should  also  be  noticed.  The  creative 
power  of  the  phantasy  may  have  especial  activity  in  dreaming 
and  insanity.  Whatever  that  power  may  be  in  its  functions  and 
products — if  it  be  allowed  that  the  phantasy  is  in  any  sense 
creative — if,  in  the  waking  and  rational  states,  it  is  not  tied  to  a 
simple  reproduction  of  the  past ;  if  it  has  any  liberty  of  origina- 
tion, then  it  might  be  natural  and  credible  that  it  should  exercise 
this  freedom  more  fully  when  unlimited  by  sense,  reason,  or  will, 
than  when  constrained  by  these  in  the  earnest  activities  of  the 
wakeful  and  rational  hours.  That  the  creations  of  the  phantasy 
of  the  dreamer  and  the  madman  have  no  correspondent  realities, 
is  obvious  to  all.  The  fantasies  of  "a  madman's  dream  "  are 
conceived  by  us  as  the  most  unnatural  and  the  wildest  of  all 
unrealities.  If  the  phantasy  is,  in  its  very  nature,  a  creative  as 
well  as  representative  power,  it  is  not  surprising  that  it  should 
create  in  madness  and  in  sleep.  If  its  creations  are  free  in  the 
i>ne  state,  when  reason  is  wakeful  and  the  will  is  attent,  and 
earnest  purposes  control,  it  is  not  surprising  that,  in  those  con- 
ditions of  activity  in  which  these  influences  are  feeble,  its  pro- 
jiucts  should  be  irrational  and  unnatural. 

These  considerations  may  serve  as  the  foundations  of  a  general 
theory  of  those  various  conditions  of  the  soul's  activity  known 
as  faintness,  dreaming,  somnambulism,  and  delirium.  They  are 
designed  only  to  prepare  for  a  more  particular  consideration  of 
each.  We  consider,  first  of  all,  sleep,  in  the  two  following 
aspects : — 

(1.)  Sleep  as  a  condition  of  the  body,  i.  e.,  sleep  in  its  physio- 
logical phenomena;  (2.)  Sleep  in  its  psychological  experiences. 

$   173.   We  cannot  understand  sleep  as  a  state  of  the    soul, 

Sleep  physio-    without  considering  the  corporeal  conditions  which  attend  it.     In 

»idered.y  °     "    order  to   interpret  it  psychologically,  we  must  first  examine  it 

physiologically.     In  sleep,  physiologically  viewed,  the  organs  of 

perception,  and  the  nerves  connected  with  them,  are  comparatively  inactive,  and 

seem  incapable  of  performing  their  accustomed  functions.     Conversely,  also,  the 

soul  can  no  longer  control  the  organs  of  sense  and  of  locomotion ;  or,  more  ex- 

ictly,  the  soul  loses,  in  a  very  great  degree,  its  power  to  direct  these  organs. 


§  174.  EEPBESENTATION. — THE  PHANTASY.  283 

On  the  other  hand,  the  functions  of  the  vegetative,  circulatory,  and  respiratory 
organs,  go  on  as  usual,  though  in  the  case  of  some  with  a  somewhat  diminished 
energy.  That  in  all  these  functions  the  whole  tone  of  life  is  lowered,  is  manifest 
directly  from  observation,  and  is  inferred  from  the  greater  sensitiveness  of  the 
body  in  sleep,  to  all  those  agencies  which  weaken  or  endanger  the  life.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  certain  that  the  nutrition  of  the  brain  and  the  whole  nervous 
organism,  is  greatly  augmented  in  sleep,  and  that  sleep  is  even  essential  to  re- 
store that  waste  of  their  material  which  wakefulaess  occasions.  If  wakefulness 
is  protracted  too  long,  by  nervous  restlessness,  or  excessive  mental  occupation  or 
anxiety,  it  terminates  in  fever,  delirium,  or  dementia,  through  a  temporary 
disease  or  permanent  lesion  of  the  nervous  organism  itself.  Hence,  sleep  is,  if 
possible,  more  absolutely  indispensaMe  to  the  restoration  of  mental  activity,  than 
to  that  of  any  other  human  function.  The  incapacity  of  the  organs  of  sense  to 
be  affected  by  impressions  from  without,  as  well  as  to  yield  to  influences  or 
directions  from  within,  varies  at  different  times.  The  want  of  control  of  the 
soul  over  its  organs,  also  varies  from  the  momentary  loss  of  power  which  can 
suddenly  be  resumed,  to  that  permanent  impotence  to  speak  or  move,  which  is 
experienced  in  the  most  distressing  nightmare. 

In  falling  to  sleep,  the  soul  passes  through  many  of  these  conditions,  begin- 
ning with  the  slightest  unconsciousness,  and  proceeding  more  or  less  gradually 
through  more  or  fewer  intervening  stages.  In  awaking  from  sleep,  it  emerges 
from  a  condition  of  more  or  less  complete  insensibility  to  one  in  which  the  senses 
are  fully  refreshed  and  active ;  and  more  or  less  gradually,  according  as  the  occa- 
sion and  manner  of  its  waking  is  more  or  less  gentle  or  violent.  The  same  is 
true  of  the  processes  by  which  it  loses  and  regains  its  command  over  the  organs. 
The  different  senses,  as  has  already  been  intimated,  fall  asleep  at  different  times 
in  various  degrees,  and  awake  also  in  unlike  proportions.  Thus,  the  sense  of  sight 
may  be  very  obtuse  when  the  sense  of  hearing  is  active,  as  is  the  case  when  a  per- 
son watches  by  the  bed  of  one  who  is  ill,  or  in  the  instance  of  men  who  can  find 
refreshment  in  sleep  when  reading  or  conversation  is  going  on,  and  are  able  to  re- 
cite when  awake  what  has  been  read  or  spoken  while  they  were  sleeping.  The 
miller  sleeps  while  his  mill  is  grinding,  but  wakes  if  it  stops.  Another  person 
sleeps  while  it  is  still,  but  wakes  when  it  moves.  The  watchman,  when  wearied, 
sleeps  with  all  his  senses,  except  the  senses  of  touch  and  muscular  direction.  Sol- 
diers sleep  in  every  sense  and  organ  of  motion,  except  the  legs  with  which  they 
march  continuously. 

§  174.  The  activity  of  the  soul  continues  during  sleep.     It  is  not 
entirely  suspended  at  any  time,  though  its  energy  may  now  and  then    ^  ^  j6p   °°™*~ 
be  exceedingly  feeble.     That  it  often  acts  during  sleep,  is  confessed    logically, 
by  all.     Every  dream  involves  some  form  of  this  activity.     There 
is  some  diversity  of  opinion  in  respect  to  the  question,  whether  this  activity  is 
constant,  or  whether  it  is  not  infrequently  interrupted.     Many  have  argued  that 
this  activity  often  ceases,  from  the  circumstance  that  we  are  not  conscious,  and  do 
not  remember  that  we  dream  all  the  while  that  we  are  asleep ;  that  we  know  that 
we  dream  more  frequently  when  sleep  is  less  complete,  as  soon  after  we  fall  asleep, 
or  just  before  we  wake;  that  in  our  deepest  slumber  it  often  happens  that  no  signs 
of  conscious  activity  are  indicated  to  a  looker-on ;  and  that  it  is  not  necessary  to 
the  continued  existence  of  the  soul  that  it  be  constantly  active.     On  the  other 
hand  it  is  urged  that  the  soul  is  always  active,  because,  on  awaking,  it  is  at  onc« 


284  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  174. 

aware  of  its  own  identity,  which  involves  the  belief  of  continued  existence  during 
the  interval  of  sleep ;  and  when  it  wakes,  it  may  recall  or  review  a  continued  scries 
of  sensational  experiences,  if  it  cannot  bring  back  an  uninterrupted  course  of  con- 
scious activities.  Moreover,  it  is  urged  that  the  fact  that  the  soul  does  not  recall 
all  its  dreams  does  not  disprove  that  it  dreams,  for  there  are  many  waking  states 
during  the  progress  of  a  single  hour,  much  more  during  a  day,  which  cannot  be 
recalled.  There  are  also  many  dreams  which  we  do  not  recall ;  as  is  obvious  from 
the  circumstance,  that  if,  on  awaking,  we  lay  hold  at  once  of  the  thread  which  is 
in  our  hands,  we  can  trace  our  way  backwards  through  the  maze  of  even  a  succes- 
sion of  dreams. 

That  the  soul  acts  with  feebler  energy  when  asleep  than  when  awake,  is  obvious 
from  the  circumstance  that  in  some  of  its  powers  it  scarcely  acts  at  all.  This  may 
be  fairly  inferred  from  that  general  dependence  of  the  tone  of  its  action  upcn  the 
force  of  the  body  which  is  observed  in  wakefulness,  which  dependence,  as  ir>ay  be 
fairly  inferred  from  analogy,  extends  to  its  sleeping  states.  The  only  possible  ex- 
ception to  this  conclusion  would  be  suggested  by  the  fact  that  some  of  the  nowers 
— e.  g.}  the  phantasy — may  seem  to  act  in  sleep  with  greater  energy  than  in  wake- 
fulness.  With  this  exception,  observation  confirms  what  analogy  suggests,  ihat, 
in  sleep,  the  general  activity  of  the  soul  is  greatly  lowered. 

The  powers  and  capacities  of  the  soul  act  with  unequal  and  varying  energy  in 
different  persons  and  in  differing  conditions  of  sleep.  The  representative  power 
of  the  soul,  as  has  already  been  said,  is  that  which  is  especially  prominent  in 
sleep.  The  law  or  force  under  which  it  acts  has  already  been  explained  as  the 
tendency  of  the  soul  to  act  more  readily  a  second  time  in  forms  and  with  objects 
which  have  previously  occupied  its  energies.  This  tendency  or  force  needs  only  to 
be  supposed  to  be  exerted  without  the  regulating  presence  of  the  other  faculties,  in 
order  to  account  for  its  greater  apparent  energy.  All  the  so-called  laws  of  associa- 
tion control  the  production  and  presence  of  the  objects  which  make  up  the  image- 
world  of  the  dreamer.  These  objects  are  sometimes  recalled  under  the  relations 
of  time  and  space,  in  succession  or  co-existence.  Sometimes  the  relations  of  like- 
ness or  unlikeness  control:  at  others,  those  of  cause  and  effect.  Very  often,  all 
these  relations  must  be  resorted  to,  to  account  for  the  presence  of  the  various  ob- 
jects of  which  a  single  dream  is  composed. 

This  comparative  irregularity  and  capriciousness  pertains  to  the  order  in  which 
these  objects  are  presented  to  the  mind.  When  the  wakeful  soul  is  intent  on  re- 
calling some  object  to  memory,  all  the  operations  of  the  representative  power  are 
controlled  by  this  prevailing  purpose.  The  multitude  of  varied  objects  which  are 
presented  by  the  associating  power,  are  entertained  or  thrust  aside  by  the  judging 
and  reasoning  intellect,  and  so  an  order  of  their  relative  value  is  secured  to  the 
objects  themselves  by  the  mind's  reaction  upon  them.  Even  if  the  mind  gives 
itself  up  to  reverie,  it  is  constantly  awake,  or  ready  to  be  awake,  to  the  sugges- 
tions of  reason,  of  use,  of  beauty,  or  of  rectitude. 

There  is  also  the  rationalizing  and  sobering  presence  of  the  material  world, 
with  its  obtrusive  realities  that  cannot  be  mistaken ;  its  permanent  attributes,  that 
cannot  be  changed ;  its  eternal  and  superior  laws,  that  can  neither  be  resisted  nor 
set  aside.  The  perpetual  presence  of  this  fixed  and  orderly  body  of  facts  and 
truths,  of  itself  gives  reason  and  order  to  the  fancies  which  it  must  in  part  con- 
trol and  regulate. 

But  in  dreams  there  is  an  absence  of  judgment,  or  the  judgments  are  partial,  and 


§174.  KEPRESENTATION. — THE  PHANTASY.  285 

the  stream  of  images  flows  on,  under  the  joint  impulses  given  it  by  the  energies 
of  the  mind's  previous  activity  and  the  force  of  casual  mental  or  bodily  sugges- 
tions. The  material  world  is  withdrawn  from  the  mind's  cognizance  as  an  ap- 
prehended fact ;  it  is  as  though  it  were  not,  and  never  had  existed. 

The  mind's  interpretations  of  the  images  of  fancy,  and  even  of  its  bodily  sensa- 
tions, are  often  false  and  irrational.  First  of  all,  it  judges  the  image-world  to  be  a 
real  world.  How  this  is  possible,  it  is  not  so  easy  to  explain ;  that  it  is  a  fact, 
cannot  be  doubted.  The  mind  is  preoccupied  by  the  action  of  the  representative 
power.  The  first  impulse,  when  a  picture  is  presented  of  an  absent  reality,  is  to  be- 
lieve it  to  be  real  when  there  is  no  ground  for  the  opposite  belief.  This  is  wisely 
provided  in  the  constitution  of  man,  to  secure  all  those  actions  for  which  the  know- 
ledge or  the  thought  of  any  reality  is  given.  The  mind,  in  dreaming,  yields  to  this 
impulse.  The  mind,  apprehending  no  real  world  with  which  to  contrast  and  judge 
the  imaginary,  uses  the  little  force  which  remains,  to  infer  that  the  products  of  its 
shifting  phantasy  are  themselves  realities.  They  are  believed  to  be  real,  for  they  ex- 
cite all  the  emotions  which  such  realities  are  fitted  to  produce.  Delight  is  experi- 
enced at  tha  image  of  a  friend  believed  to  be  present,  who  is  perhaps  far  distant,  or 
long  removed  by  death.  Grief  is  felt  at  some  distressing  event  which  is  simply 
pictured  by  the  phantasy.  The  mind  is  not  only  incapable  of  discriminating  the 
real  from  the  fantastic,  but  it  interprets  the  real  to  be  itself  a  part  of  its  fantastic 
world.  It  misinterprets  the  bodily  sensations  which  it  experiences,  the  sensations 
of  cold  or  heat,  of  oppression  in  the  stomach  or  the  heart,  and  of  pain  or  pleasure 
in  any  part  of  the  body.  Thus  Dr.  Gregory  relates  that,  having  occasion  to  apply 
a  bottle  of  hot  water  to  his  feet,  he  dreamed  that  he  was  walking  on  Mount  Etna, 
and  found  the  heat  insupportable.  A  person  suffering  from  a  blister  applied  to 
his  head,  imagined  that  he  was  scalped  by  a  party  of  Indians.  A  person  sleeping 
in  damp  sheets,  dreamed  that  he  was  dragged  through  a  stream.  By  leaving  the 
knees  uncovered,  as  an  experiment,  the  dream  was  produced  that  the  person  was 
traveling  by  night  in  a  diligence.  Leaving  the  back  part  of  the  head  uncov- 
ered, the  same  person  dreamed  he  was  present  at  a  religious  ceremony  performed 
in  the  open  air.  The  smell  of  a  smoky  chamber  has  occasioned  frightful  dreams 
of  being  involved  in  conflagration.  The  scent  of  flowers  may  transport  the 
dreamer  to  some  enchanted  garden,  or  the  tones  of  music  may  surround  him  with 
the  excitements  of  a  well-appointed  concert. 

The  exercise  of  this  judgment  in  respect  to  the  higher  relations  of  thought 
varies  very  greatly  in  the  energy  of  its  action,  and  the  perfection  of  its  results. 
There  are  many  cases  in  dreams  in  which  single  steps,  or  parts  of  a  series  of  steps 
in  reasoning,  are  taken  surely  and  correctly,  while  these  processes  are  entirely  dis- 
connected with  what  went  before  or  followed  after,  as  if  the  rational  powers  had 
resumed  for  a  single  instant  their  full  energy  of  function.  In  other  cases,  the 
reasoning  may  be  correct  and  the  data  may  be  false,  and  yet  the  falseness  of  the 
data  may  not  be  perceived.  In  still  other  cases,  the  data  may  be  correctly  dis- 
cerned, and  the  conclusions  correctly  derived,  so  that  both  premises  and  reasoning 
combine  to  a  true  and  valid  conclusion.  Even  the  more  difficult  feats  of  the  in- 
vention and  arrangement  of  the  materials  of  an  argument,  have  been  successfully 
performed  in  dreams.  The  creations  of  poetry,  even  to  the  selection  of  rhythmi 
cal  words,  and  the  composition  of  sermons  and  addresses,  have  been  often  effected. 
Difficult  problems  in  mathematics  have  been  solved  and  remembered ;  new  and 
ingenious  theories  have  been  devised.  Happy  expedients  of  deliverance  from 


286  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  175. 

practical  difficulties  have  presented  themselves,  and  brought  relief  from  serious 
embarrassments. 

Consciousness  is  ordinarily  but  feebly  exercised  by  the  soul  in  its  dreams.  It  is 
often  said  to  be  absent  altogether.  By  consciousness  is  understood  the  distinct 
apprehension  of  the  psychical  states,  as  the  states  of  the  individual  eyo,  and  not 
that  transient  knowledge  of  them  which  is  essential  to  any  intellectual  activity.  It 
is  when  consciousness  acts  as  judgment,  and  recognizes  the  relations  of  psychical 
states,  that  its  results  remain  in  the  memory.  This  form  or  degree  of  conscious- 
ness is  usually  entirely  absent,  or  feebly  exercised  in  dreams.  The  reason  why  it 
is  thus  feebly  put  forth,  may  be  the  same  which  accounts  for  the  absence  of  correct 
interpretations  of  the  semblances  of  the  material  world. 

For  the  same  reason  the  estimates  of  time  are  so  extravagantly  and  even  ludi- 
crously erroneous.  In  our  dreams,  we  occupy  a  year  in  making  a  voyage  j  we  per- 
form a  journey,  we  witness  a  long  procession,  we  climb  a  mountain,  and  yet  the 
time  actually  expended  is  inconceivably  short. 

These  erroneous  judgments  of  time  are  the  natural  and  necessary  consequences 
of  mistaking  the  phantasms  of  our  dreams  for  real  substances  and  events.  We 
picture  to  ourselves  the  incidents  of  a  voyage  or  a  journey.  We  turn  these  pic- 
tures into  realities,  and  they  carry  with  themselves  the  estimates  of  time  which 
would  be  required  if  they  existed  or  occurred  in  fact.  The  weakening  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  accompanying  psychical  states,  withdraws  any  corrective  in- 
fluences which  would  be  furnished  by  the  more  distinct  apprehension  of  the  time 
required  for  the  experience  of  them. 

The  activity  of  the  sensibilities  in  the  dreaming  state  requires  a  moment's  con- 
sideration. That  we  feel  in  our  dreams,  or  seem  to  feel,  will  not  be  disputed.  If 
we  believe  we  are  in  danger,  we  experience  terror ;  if  we  dream  that  we  are  safe  or 
successful,  we  rejoice.  In  some  cases,  but  not  usually,  the  fear  and  happiness  are 
as  intense  and  as  real  as  when  we  are  awake.  In  other  cases,  we  feel,  but  on  the 
review  are  surprised  that  we  felt  no  more.  Our  joy  and  sorrow  are  but  the  pale 
counterfeits  of  waking  emotions.  The  intensity  of  the  emotions  depends  on  the 
strength  of  our  belief  and  the  time  of  its  continuance. 

Is  the  will  properly  active  at  all  during  our  dreams  ?  That  we  act,  as  well  as 
know  and  feel,  is  obvious  from  experience.  We  seem  to  resist,  to  struggle,  to 
speak,  to  sing,  to  walk,  to  run,  etc.  We  strive  to  attend,  to  remember,  to  Contrive, 
to  compose,  etc.;  in  other  words,  we  seem  to  use  our  mental  powers  under  some 
directive  force  for  definite  objects.  It  follows  that  the  conative,  or  impulsive  part 
of  our  nature — the  capacities  which  fit  for  action,  are  employed  in  the  dreaming 
state.  If  these  capacities  are  properly  called  the  will,  then  we  use  the  will  in 
dreaming.  But  if  we  mean  by  the  will,  the  capacity  to  direct  the  impulses  by  a 
rational  or  a  moral  purpose,  it  is  equally  clear  that  the  will  is  entirely  dormant,  or, 
at  best,  is  only  occasionally  or  feebly  active.  It  is  and  must  be  inactive,  because 
the  appropriate  conditions  for  its  exercise  are  absent.  The  reason  does  not  pro- 
pose a  distinct  end  which  the  mind  retains  in  view.  The  reflective  consciousness 
neither  forms  rules  nor  imposes  them.  The  will  cannot  act  as  a  rational  or  moral 
director  when  these  essential  conditions  are  withdrawn. 

$  175.  Somnambulism  assumes  three  forms,  which  have  certain 
OT™bnormal801'  features  or  phenomena  in  common,  but  which,  in  certain  respects, 
sleep.  are  unlike.  These  forms  are  the  natural,  the  morbid,  and  the 

artificial.     The  natural,  is  that  which  may  occur  in  ordinary  sleep.    The  morbid,  is 


§175.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   PHANTASY.  287 

an  incident  or  phase  of  active  disease  of  body  or  mind.  The  artificial,  is  induced  by 
the  instrumentality  of  another  person.  Each  of  these  forms  or  manifestations  is 
subdivided  into  varieties,  which  pass  into  one  another  by  scarcely  distinguishable 
shades  of  difference. 

Natural  somnambulism  is  distinguished  from  normal  sleep  by  the  special  sensi- 
bility of  some — generally  some  one — of  the  organs  of  sense,  and  by  special  ac- 
tivity in  the  use  of  some  of  the  organs  of  bodily  motion.  The  appellation,  sleep, 
walking,  is  derived  from  the  act  of  walking  in  sleep,  which  for  obvious  reasons  oc- 
curs more  frequently  than  any  other  bodily  activity. 

A  multitude  of  examples  of  natural  somnambulism  are  recorded.  One  only  will 
serve.  "A  young  nobleman  mentioned  by  Horstius,  living  in  the  citadel  of 
Breslau,  was  observed  by  his  brother,  who  occupied  the  same  room,  to  rise  in  his 
sleep,  wrap  himself  in  his  cloak,  and  escape  by  a  window  to  the  roof  of  a  building, 
lie  there  tore  in  pieces  a  magpie's  nest,  wrapped  the  young  birds  in  his  cloak,  re- 
turned to  his  apartment,  and  went  to  bed.  In  the  morning  he  mentioned  the  cir- 
cumstances as  having  occurred  in  a  dream,  and  could  not  be  persuaded  that  there 
had  been  any  thing  more  than  a  dream,  till  he  was  shown  the  magpies  in  his 
cloak." — Dr.  Abercrombie. 

The  activities  required  in  this  case,  were  the  sense-perceptions  of  sight  to  direct 
the  movements  and  the  active  control  of  the  legs  and  arms-  Sometimes  the  sense 
of  smell,  or  of  hearing,  or  of  taste,  are  observed  to  be  unusually  acute.  The  use  of 
the  voice  is  often  observed.  The  mental  powers  are  often  excited  with  great 
energy,  continuity,  and  success.  Persons  in  the  somnambulic  state  will  recite 
passages  from  authors  even  in  a  foreign  language,  which  they  could  not  repeat 
when  awake.  Persons  who  are  imperfectly  proficient  in  a  language,  converse  with 
far  greater  ease  and  correctness  than  they  have  ever  been  known  to  do  in  the 
normal  condition.  Some  remarkable  compositions  have  been  written,  and  eloquent 
discourses  have  been  spoken,  which  were  quite  beyond  the  ordinary  capacities  of 
the  individuals  from  whom  they  came. 

In  the  magnetic,  or  morbid  somnambulism,  such  extraordinary  mental  power  has 
often  been  observed  as  to  be  ascribed  to  inspiration  from  another  mind,  or  to  some 
miraculous  deviation  from  the  laws  of  nature. 

The  ordinary  and  the  magnetic  or  ecstatic  somnambulism,  differ  from  each 
other,  in  that  the  ordinary  is  preceded  and  followed  by  ordinary  slumber,  while 
the  ecstatic  comes  upon  the  patient  and  leaves  him  at  once,  usually  in  a  condition 
of  extreme  disease.  In  their  psychological  features,  the  two  forms  of  this  affec- 
tion may  be  considered  as  alike,  differing  only  in  the  greater  intensity  of  some  of 
their  manifestations.  Both  are  also  exaltations  of  phenomena  which  are  occa- 
sionally exhibited  in  common  dreaming  and  sleep. 

In  all  forms  of  somnambulism,  the  representative  power  is  the  one  most  promi- 
nently and  conspicuously  active.  The  leading  objects  of  cognition  and  feeling  are 
the  mind's  own  creations.  The  man  lives  and  moves,  he  feels  and  acts, in  and  for 
a  dream.  Dream-objects  are  taken  to  be  real  existences,  and  these  engross  and 
absorb  the  chief  energies,  and  direct  to  many  of  the  actions.  But  the  dream  of 
the  somnambulist  is  far  more  methodical  and  continuous  than  the  dream  of 
ordinary  sleep.  The  mind  apparently  rests  upon  its  objects  for  a  longer  time,  and 
gives  to  them  a  more  fixed  attention  than  it  does  to  the  phantasmagoria  of  the 
common  dream.  Certainly  it  must  do  both  of  these,  when  it  adapts  speech  and 


288  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  17& 

motion  to  its  dream-world,  as  it  does  whenever  it  is  prompted  to  speak,  and  walk, 
and  lift,  and  write,  at  the  rate  required  by  its  phantasms.  Its  sense-perceptions 
do  indeed  direct  the  motions  and  regulate  the  rate  of  many  of  its  bodily  acts ;  bu* 
it  were  a  serious  error  to  suppose  that  what  it  seems  to  see,  or  to  hear  by  the  ear, 
makes  up  the  entire  world,  or  the  principal  part  of  the  world  in  which  the  mind 
has  its  being  and  performs  its  acts.  Besides  these  sense-objects,  there  is  a  multi- 
tude besides,  which  make  up  the  background,  and  the  foreground  even,  of  its  field 
of  view.  In  the  case  of  the  nobleman  cited,  in  all  his  movements  to  and  from  the 
nest  of  magpies,  his  thoughts  were  occupied  with  many  phantasms  which  he  con- 
sidered real,  and  with  reference  to  which  he  performed  the  actions  recited.  These 
formed  the  connecting  and  the  accompanying  scenery  of  the  sense-objects  which 
he  perceived.  The  fact  that  sense-objects  were  blended  with  them,  served  to 
steady  and  retard  the  progress  of  the  dream,  and  thus  to  make  it  regular  and  me- 
thodical. The  feats  which  the  fancy  performs,  its  powers  of  memory,  its  skill  in 
invention,  and  its  resources  of  creation,  are  only  the  natural  results  of  concen- 
trated attention  upon  a  few,  and  these  connected  objects.  But  this  exaltation  of 
the  fancy  is  purchased  at  the  cost  of  its  being  limited  to  but  few  objects — to  single 
and  spontaneous  trains  of  thought  running  in  the  courses  started  and  traced  by 
the  muscular  and  vita]  sensations,  or  the  few  sense-objects  to  which  the  excited 
senses  are  awake. 

The  powers  of  sense-perception,  so  far  as  they  are  exerted  at  all,  act  with  sur- 
prising energy  and  effect.  It  is  not  only  a  surprising  thing  that  they  should  act 
at  all  in  so  profound  a  sleep ;  but  that  the  organ  should  be  more  sensitive  and  the 
mind  more  acute  than  in  the  normal  condition,  is  still  more  remarkable.  But  this 
is  often  observed  in  the  somnambulist.  The  objects  seen  are  often  seen  by  the 
faintest  light,  and  yet  they  are  seen  most  clearly,  because  actions  requiring  acute 
vision  of  these  objects  are  performed  with  precision  and  success.  The  touch  must 
be  acute,  or  the  somnambulist  could  not  walk  so  confidently  in  difficult  and  dan- 
gerous places,  nor  avoid  obstacles  so  dexterously,  nor  perform  so  many  nice  opera- 
tions, as  in  skilfully  writing  and  playing  on  a  musical  instrument.  The  senses 
of  smell  and  hearing  are  often  unusually  sensitive  to  odors  and  sounds. 

The  question  has  sometimes  been  raised,  Whether  the  somnambulist  really  per- 
ceives with  the  senses?  It  has  been  argued  that 'he  does  not,  because  he  also 
dreams,  and  because  his  dreams  furnish  the  greater  number  of  the  objects  of  his 
knowledge  and  feeling.  It  has  been  inferred  that,  when  he  seems  to  perceive,  he 
only  dreams,  and  that  what  seem  to  be  the  objects  of  his  sense-perceptions,  serve, 
through  his  interpretations,  to  form  a  part  of  the  dreams  in  which  alone  he  knows 
and  feels.  To  this  it  is  sufficient  to  reply  that  he  certainly  acts  with  reference  to 
the  real  world,  and  that  he  really  acts — i.  e.,  directs  the  motions  of  his  legs  and 
arms,  and  uses  and  modulates  his  voice.  So  far  at  least  as  he  acts  he  must  have 
real  sensations. 

But  while  his  senses  are  often  surprisingly  acute,  they  are  both  limited  and  un- 
certain in  their  operation  and  in  their  results.  He  does  not  see  everything  in  tho 
apartment  in  which  he  is  present,  but  only  the  table,  or  chairs,  or  the  paper  on 
which  he  writes,  or  the  candle  which  he  holds.  It  is  only  to  those  objects  which 
have  some  relation  to  his  thoughts  and  actious  that  he  is  sensitively  alive. 

The  various  observations  that  have  been  made,  warrant  the  induction  that  the 
phantasy  stimulates  and  awakens  the  organ  of  sense,  and  determines  the  mind  to 


§  175.  REPRESENTATION. — THE  PHANTASY.  289 

use  it  with  wakeful  attention.  It  is  the  soul  itself  that  quickens  the  organ  thus 
made  ready  by  disease  or  weakness  for  this  extraordinary  activity,  to  that  momen- 
tary excitement  which  is  required  to  fasten  the  mind  to  its  monitions. 

This  extraordinary  exaltation  of  single  senses  is  not  without  its  analogy  in  the 
wakeful  and  normal  conditions  of  the  soul.  The  vision  of  the  sailor,  the  lace- 
maker,  the  horo'ogist,  the  hearing  of  the  sentinel  and  the  hunter,  the  touch  of  the 
blind,  the  machinist,  and  the  musician,  seem  to  the  stranger  to  be  something  al- 
most supernatural.  The  still  higher  exaltation  of  these  sense-powers,  in  the  case 
of  the  somnambulist,  is  on  the  same  ascending  line  with  these  natural  variations. 
It  is  only  extraordinary  in  degree. 

We  come  next  to  a  subject  still  more  interesting,  and,  at  first  sight,  more  puz- 
zling, viz.,  the  apparent  increased  excitement  of  intellectual  power  as  manifested 
in  achievements  performed  by  the  somnambulist,  particularly  when  in  the  mesmeric 
or  ecstatic  condition.  The  first  which  we  shall  consider  is  the  claim  for  him  of 
the  ability  to  perceive  material  qualities  and  objects  without  the  medium  of  the 
organs  of  sense.  For  example  :  it  is  asserted  that  he  can  see  near  objects  through 
the  thickest  bandage,  and  with  the  back  of  the  head  ,•  that  he  can  hear  by  the 
epigastrium,  etc.,  etc. 

In  respeot  to  the  first  claim,  that  near  objects  can  be  seen  or  heard  independently 
of  the  ear  and  the  eye,  we  need  only  observe  that,  provided  many  of  the  stories 
are  neither  false  nor  exaggerated,  not  one  of  them  proves  that  the  mind  can  have 
sense-perceptions  independently  of  the  nervous  organism.  If  the  story  be  re- 
ceived as  true,  that  the  person  has  seen  (not  remembered  nor  conjectured/-  through 
an  interposed  bandage  or  by  the  back  of  the  head,  it  would  still  be  true  that  the 
optic  nerve  and  the  retina  might  be  so  morbidly  sensitive  as  to  be  affected  by  the 
light,  even  if  the  eyelids  were  closed  or  thickly  covered.  No  fact  is  more  clearly 
established  than  that,  within  certain  limits,  one  part  of  the  sensorium,  or  portion 
of  a  single  system  of  nerves,  can,  under  extraordinary  excitement,  perform  the 
functions  of  another. 

The  second  claim  is  of  a  power  to  see  distant  objects  which  no  sense-power  can 
reach,  as  objects  immured  in  total  darkness  behind  thick  and  solid  walls.  Such  a 
power,  or  its  exercise,  can  be  explained  by  no  known  powers  or  laws  of  nature. 
There  is  nothing  analogous  to  its  possession  or  its  exercise,  in  any  thing  which  we 
know  in  the  normal  actings  of  the  soul.  Whatever  the  power  may  be  which  acts 
in  this  way,  it  is  not  vision.  The  person  does  not  see  the  object,  but  if  he  discerns 
any  thing,  it  is  a  phantasm,  an  image,  or  series  of  images  which  are  purely 
mental.  If  there  be  any  thing  which  he  apprehends,  it  is  a  mental  object,  the 
production  of  his  own  soul.  It  exists  while  he  beholds  it,  within  and  for  his  soul 
alone.  If  the  object  or  scene  has  never  been  the  object  of  his  personal  inspection, 
the  pictures  which  he  forms  of  it  must  be  taken  from  materials  within  his  own  ob- 
servation, or  imparted  by  description.  If  it  be  the  city  of  Pekin,  or  the  Himalaya 
mountains,  the  picture  is  composed  either  of  fragments  of  what  he  has  seen  of 
New  York  or  Boston,  of  London  or  Paris,  of  the  mountains  of  America,  or  Europe, 
or  from  some  drawing  or  painting  of  the  cities  or  mountains  themselves. 

The  third  claim  for  the  soul,  of  a  power  to  understand  its  own  bodily  disorders, 
as  to  their  seat  or  cure,  may  be  explained  in  part  by  the  fact  that  the  sufferer  in 
the  somnambulic  state  is  far  more  keenly  alive  than  when  awake,  to  his  own 
bodily  sensations.  If  an  organ  is  diseased,  the  disease  will  often  be  manifest  by 
means  of  sensations  which  are  prominent  and  unmistakable  in  the  soul's  experi- 

13 


290  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  175. 

ence.  These  are  the  data  for  its  interpretations  or  inferences.  The  disease  may 
have  been  an  object  of  intense  anxiety  and  earnest  inquiry.  The  person  affected 
may  have  more  or  less  knowledge  of  the  anatomical  structure  and  of  the  func- 
tions of  many  of  the  organs.  It  will  always  be  found  to  be  true,  in  such  cases, 
that  the  insight  of  the  somnambulist  in  respect  to  the  names  of  the  organs  and 
their  functions,  does  not  go  beyond  what  he  has  learned  by  conversation  or  read- 
ing. Let  him  be  ever  so  gifted,  he  will  not  learn  the  nature  or  the  name  of  a 
single  organ,  or  its  office,  or  a  single  remedy,  which  has  not  been  the  subject  of 
thought  in  wakefulness  and  health.  If  this  is  so,  the  case  is  reduced  to  extra- 
ordinary sagacity  exercised  upon  data  or  knowledge  communicated  or  impressed 
in  an  extraordinary  manner. 

Fourth,  the  exaltation  of  the  higher  intellect  to  the  capacity  to  perform  some 
very  extraordinary  achievements,  remains  to  be  considered.  This  is  much  more 
remarkable  in  the  morbid  than  in  the  natural  somnambulism.  The  somnambulist 
sometimes  displays  great  acuteness  of  judgment.  He  sees  resemblances  and  differ- 
ences which  had  not  occurred  to  him  in  his  waking  states,  and  which  astonish 
lookers-on.  He  is  quick  in  repartee;  he  solves  difficult  problems;  he  composes 
and  speaks  with  method  and  effect ;  he  reasons  acutely ;  he  interprets  character 
with  rare  subtlety ;  he  understands  passing  events  with  unusual  insight ;  he  pre- 
dicts those  which  are  to  come  by  skilful  forecast.  How  are  all  these  phenomena  to 
be  explained  ? 

We  reply :  By  the  excitement  of  the  intellect  from  an  intense  interest  in  the 
subject-matter  with  which  it  is  occupied,  the  concentration  of  the  attention  for 
a  long  time  upon  a  few  objects  only  and  a  few  of  their  relations,  and  the  pre- 
vious familiarity  of  the  mind  with  these  objects  and  relations.  That  the  mind 
occasionally  acts  with  energy  when  in  the  dream-state,  even  in  its  highest  func- 
tions, has  already  been  noticed.  That,  when  it  thinks  and  reasons  in  somnani' 
bulism,  it  is  animated  by  strong  excitement  arising  from  a  strong  interest  in  the 
subject-matter,  is  obvious  to  all,  and  will  not  be  questioned. 

Next,  the  attention  is  concentrated  upon  objects  for  a  sufficient  length  of 
time  to  secure  entire  familiarity  with  them  and  their  relations.  The  attention 
of  the  somnambulist  is  limited,  as  we  have  seen,  to  but  few  sense-objects.  To 
all  other  objects  except  those  which  excite  this  or  that  sense,  it  is  deaf  and 
blind. 

Last  of  all,  his  sense-objects  and  his  dream-objects  are  ordinarily  very  familiar. 
They  have  previously  been  the  frequent  object  of  thought  and  speculation. 
The  questions  for  which  the  person  finds  new  answers,  the  problems  for  which  he 
devises  new  solutions,  the  events  or  characters  upon  which  he  casts  a  new 
light,  are  not  for  the  first  time  before  riis  mind.  The  operations  of  his  in- 
tellect are  also  all  in  the  line  of  his  previous  efforts  and  training.  The  som- 
nambulist does  not  for  the  first  time  appear  as  a  mathematician,  poet,  orator, 
politician,  or  divine;  nor  does  he  display  activities  which  have  not  been  in 
their  quality  and  kind,  if  not  in  degree,  familiar  to  his  use. 

The  gift  of  divination,  or  prophecy,  which  is  claimed  for  the  somnambulist,  when- 
ever it  deserves  consideration,  is  explained  in  part  by  the  extraordinary  sagacity 
•which  is  developed  in  respect  to  subjects  that  are  interesting  and  familiar  to  the 
mind.  The  somnambulist  forecasts  or  prophesies,  by  reasoning  upon  the  evidence 
before  him.  His  attention  being  fixed  and  his  interest  being  aroused,  he  applies 
his  intellectual  force  to  the  subjects  before  him,  and  shows  the  same  sagacity  in 


§  175.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   PHANTASY.  291 

foreseeing  future  results  that  he  exhibits  in  interpreting  events  that  are  presen^ 
by  the  causes,  the  laws,  and  principles  that  are  concerned  in  bringing  them  to 
pass. 

One  or  two  other  features  common  to  all  the  varieties  of  somnambulism  remain 
to  be  noticed. 

First,  the  somnambulist,  when  he  wakes,  usually,  though  not  invariably,  forgets 
his  actions,  perceptions,  and  thoughts  during  sleep.  His  dream,  with  all  that  it 
involves,  is  to  him  an  empty  blank.  To  many,  this  seems  incredible ;  to  others,  it 
is  an  insoluble  mystery.  That  it  is  not  incredible,  is  established  by  the  amount 
of  decisive  evidence  which  is  adduced  of  its  actual  occurrence.  That  it  is  not  in- 
explicable, appears  from  analogous  phenomena  in  dream-life,  as  well  as  from  the 
dissimilarity  of  the  conditions  of  mental  activity  in  the  waking  and  the  somnam- 
bulic  state.  The  dreams  of  the  profoundest  sleep  are  rarely  remembered,  for  the 
reason  that  the  bodily  condition,  with  all  the  sensations  which  it  involves,  is,  in 
many  respects,  very  unlike  that  which  attends  our  lighter  slumbers  and  our  waking 
states.  The  sensations  which  accompany  these  varying  conditions,  as  has  been 
shown,  are  an  essential  element  in  our  mental  experiences.  If  the  phantasy  is 
active,  they  are  the  essential  conditions  of  its  activity  in  any  determinate  direc- 
tion. For  this  reason,  these  bodily  sensations  direct  the  course  and  furnish  the 
occasions  for  many  of  our  dreams.  But  in  somnambulism  these  sensations  are 
more  controlling  and  more  unique  than  in  any  other  dreaming  or  in  any  other 
sleep.  Whatever  else  there  may  be  which  awakens  and  directs  the  phantasy  is, 
if  possible,  still  more  unlike  any  other  experiences  of  wakefulness  or  sleep.  If  tha 
transition  from  ordinary  sleep  and  ordinary  dreams  to  wakefulness  is  often  so  ab- 
rupt and  complete  as  to  involve  entire  oblivion  of  all  which  we  have  thought,  or 
felt,  or  done,  it  is  less  surprising  that,  when  we  awake  from  the  sleep  of  som- 
nambulism, whether  the  transition  be  sudden  or  gradual,  it  is  so  complete  that 
the  present  presents  few  or  no  relations  to  the  past. 

•These  considerations  both  explain  and  confirm  the  second  fact  that  has  some- 
times been  observed,  viz. :  that  the  somnambulist,  when  he  passes  into  a  suc- 
ceeding condition  of  abnormal  activity,  remembers  the  experiences,  and,  as  it 
were,  remembers  the  self  of  similar  previous  states.  How  this  should  be  possible, 
most  clearly  appears  from  the  principles  already  laid  down :  The  objects  of 
thought  and  memory,  the  motives  and  directors  of  action  which  were  present  in 
the  previous  condition,  return  to  him  a  second  time,  and  they  bring  with  them 
their  attendant  experiences.  When  the  soul  passes  a  second  time  into  the  sur- 
roundings of  his  abnormal  being,  they  are  no  longer  strange,  but  he  recognizes 
them  as  familiar,  and,  taking  up  new  threads  of  memory,  he  recalls  the  pre- 
ceding dream. 

Some  remarkable  instances  are  recorded  of  alternating  states,  in  each  of  which 
the  acquisitions,  the  capacities,  and  the  employments  were  unlike  those  in  the 
other,  and  yet,  as  the  similar  states  recurred  at  intervals,  they  were  connected 
by  continuity  of  memory. 

The  artificial  somnambulism  is  peculiar,  in  that  it  is  induced  by  the  interven- 
tion of  another  person,  who,  by  means  of  passes  or  other  appliances,  brings  the 
subject  into  a  sleep  and  dream,  the  processes  and  objects  of  which  he  directs, 
and  from  which  he  awakes  him  at  his  own  will.  Hence  it  is  called  artificial,  as 
effected  by  another,  in  distinction  from  the  natural,  which  is  induced  by  ordi- 
nary sleep,  and  the  morbid,  which  is  the  incident  of  active  disease.  It  is  also 


292  THE  HUMAN  INTELLECT.  §  173. 

called  the  magnetic  sleep.  It  originally  received  this  appellation,  because  it  was 
supposed  to  be  produced  by  a  magnetic  influence,  generated  by  or  attendant 
upon  all  the  animal  functions. 

There  is  still  another  condition  called  hypnotism,  or  the  hypnotic  state,  which 
may  be  properly  called  the  artificial  sleep  as  distinguished  from  the  artificial 
somnambulism— i.  e.,  the  artificial  dream.  It  is  like  somnambulism,  as  pro- 
duced by  the  agency  of  another,  and  as  being  under  the  control  of  the  pro- 
ducing agent.  The  connection  of  the  mind  of  the  operator  with  the  mind  and 
the  actions  of  the  subject,  is  not  so  manifest,  or  is  not  always  carried  so  far  as 
is  claimed  for  artificial  somnambulism.  It  is  however  so  like  it  in  every  essential 
feature,  as  to  deserve  to  be  considered  as  at  least  a  lower  degree  of  its  exercise. 

For  the  purposes  which  we  have  in  view,  hypnotism  and  artificial  somnam- 
bulism or  mesmerism,  may  be  considered  as  one.  The  states  so  designated  have 
the  following  features  :  Artificial  sleep;  entire  or  total  insensibility  of  some  of  the 
sense-organs;  an  unnatural  excitement  and  acuteness  of  others;  the  capacity  to 
maintain  some  relation  with  the  operator,  so  that  the  sleep  and  the  dreams  of 
the  subject  are  under  his  exclusive  direction  and  control.  All  these  phenomena^ 
with  one  apparent  exception,  are  analogous  to  those  of  the  forms  of  somnam- 
bulism already  considered.  The  production  of  the  sleep  is  the  result  of  an  ex- 
citement of  some  of  the  sense-organs  or  parts  of  the  nervous  system,  initiated 
by  exciting  and  fixing  the  attention  of  a  susceptible  patient,  by  the  aid  of  a 
strong  will  and  the  energetic  activity  of  the  operator.  The  physical  and  imme- 
diate cause  of  the  sleep  is  common  to  all  the  cases.  It  is  the  congestion  of 
the  brain.  The  occasions  or  causes  of  the  congestion  are  diverse.  In  natural 
somnambulism,  it  is  an  incident  of  ordinary  sleep  in  a  person  of  sensitive 
organism.  In  morbid  somnambulism,  it  is  an  attendant  of  active  nervous 
disease.  In  the  artificial,  the  congestion  is  the  result  of  the  attention  of  the 
patient  leading  to  excessive  physical  excitement  of  some  part  of  the  sen- 
Borium. 

In  artificial  somnambulism,  the  feature  which  is  at  once  the  most  dis- 
tinctive and  the  most  difficult  to  explain  is  the  control  of  one  mind  by  an- 
other. While  the  patient  is  inaccessible  to  communications  from  every  other 
person,  he  is  open  both  to  communications  and  impressions  from  the  operator. 
Not  only  is  he  open  to  communications  from  him,  but  he  is  also  in  a  considerable 
degree  subject  to  his  control. 

If,  however,  we  consider  the  phenomena  of  natural  somnambulism,  or  even 
those  of  the  common  dream,  we  shall  find  some  striking  points  of  resemblance. 
In  both  these  conditions,  great  insensibility  of  certain  powers  is  conjoined  with 
extreme  sensitiveness  of  others.  The  dreamer  and  the  somnambulist  are  dead  in 
some  of  their  senses,  and  comparatively  alert  and  active  in  others.  The  phantasy 
of  both  is  active.  To  ordinary  persons  any  approach  into  their  inner  life  is  en- 
tirely precluded.  But  to  the  .observer  who  understands  the  habits,  or  can  inter- 
pret the  dream  of  another,  it  is  not  difficult  to  gain  the  attention,  to  institute  and 
maintain  conversation,  to  effect  a  communication  with  the  thoughts,  to  give  posi- 
tive direction  and  control  to  the  thoughts,  and,  through  the  thoughts,  to  the  feel- 
ings. No  feature  of  a  person  in  this  condition  is  so  striking  as  the  entire  and 
helpless  dependence  of  some  of  his  powers  on  other  persons  for  stimulus  and  guid- 
ance, and  the  passiveness  with  which  both  the  senses  and  the  fancy  respond  to 
their  suggestions,  and  are  controlled  by  their  direction. 


§  176.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   PHANTASY,  293 

In  the  artificial  somnambulism  these  conditions  are  intensified.  The  natural 
equilibrium  is  more  effectually  disturbed  than  in  the  state  just  described.  The 
insensibility  of  some  of  the  powers,  and  the  sensitiveness  of  others,  are  height- 
ened. This  condition  is  induced  by  processes  that  bring  the  operator  prominently 
before  the  attention  of  the  subject,  and  connect  him  with  the  trains  of  thought 
•which  his  phantasy  pursues.  The  subject  falls  asleep  with  his  eye  fixed  upon 
the  operator,  by  obeying  directions  which  fell  from  his  lips,  and  following 
motions  and  signs  which  engrossed  his  own  attention.  When  the  sleep  is  effected, 
it  is  in  its  nature  but  partial.  A  portion  only  of  his  powers  are  awake,  and,  by 
concession,  are  morbidly  and  sensitively  alive  to  their  appropriate  impressions. 
It  is  not  unnatural,  rather  it  is  most  natural  and  reasonable,  to  expect  that  these 
powers  so  sensitive  would  respond  to  the  voice  and  even  to  the  tones  of  the  one 
person  to  whom  the  patient  had  passively  surrendered  in  the  beginning  of  the 
process;  that  indications  which  escape  the  notice  of  ordinary  observers,  should  be 
intelligible  and  patent  for  him,  and  that,  when  these  indications  are  conveyed 
they  should  control  all  his  movements  of  thought  and  feeling.  It  is  credible  that 
the  pictures  before  the  fancy  of  the  operator  should  be  awakened  in  his  own,  and 
that  his  positive  assertion  should  not  only  be  taken  as  proof  of  their  real  existence, 
but  should  cause  the  subject  to  believe  that  his  own  senses  perceive  them,  so  that 
he  should  think  he  sees  a  mountain,  a  house,  brilliant  colors,  smoke,  flame,  etc., 
etc.,  at  the  will  of  the  operator  who  dominates  over  his  fancy. 

$  176.  Our  discussion  of  the  phantasy  would  not  be  complete, 

if  we   omitted  to   notice   the  phenomena  of  hallucinations,  and    Hallucinations, 

apparitions,  etc. 
spectral  apparitions  or  illusions.     A  distinction  should  be  made 

between  the  proper  images  of  the  phantasy,  when  mistaken  for  or  believed  to 
be  realities,  as  by  the  dreamer  and  the  somnambulist,  and  the  actual  vision  of 
images  in  the  formation  of  which  the  senses  cooperate,  such  as  occur  to  persons 
in  a  morbid  condition  when  they  are  broadly  awake,  as  also  to  those  attacked  by 
fever,  or  to  such  as  suffer  from  the  effects  of  certain  narcotics  or  intoxicating 
drugs.  One  of  the  most  remarkable  cases  of  continued  exposure  to  such  visita- 
tions, is  that  recorded  of  himself  by  the  celebrated  Nicolai  of  Berlin  in  the 
Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Berlin,  for  1799. 

The  case  of  Nicolai  is  by  no  means  solitary.  There  are  not  a  few  persons 
of  sensitive  organization  who  occasionally  see  distinct  images,  visions,  and 
phantasms  of  real  objects,  which  have  distinct  form,  distinguishable  color,  and 
a  certain  permanent  endurance  like  objects  actually  existing.  These  phantasms, 
moreover,  assume  relations  of  place  and  motion  to  real  objects.  They  are  seated 
in  chairs,  they  stand  by  the  bedside,  they  look  through  the  window,  and  have 
the  dimensions  which  are  suitable  to  their  place  and  their  distance  from  tho 
observer.  If  the  judgment  of  the  subject  of  them  is  clear,  and  his  self-corn, 
mand  complete,  he  knows  they  are  not  real  objects,  even  though  he  cannot 
remove  them.  (Cf.  Hallucinations,  or  the  Rational  History  of  Apparitions, 
Visions,  etc.,  etc.,  by  A.  Brierre  de  Boismont,  Phil.  1853.) 

These  phantasms  are  much  more  frequent  in  transient  delirium  from  fever, 
or  permanent  insanity.  They  are  the  almost  invariable  result  of  a  variety 
of  drugs,  as  opium,  hasheesh  (Cannabis  Indica),  and  stramonium.  They  are 
the  fearful  attendants  of  that  irregularity  of  nervous  action  which  is  the 
consequence  of  excess  in  the  use  of  intoxicating  liquors.  It  is  noticeable  that 
the  excitement  occasioned  by  each  of  these  drugs,  as  also  that  delirium  tremena  isf 


294  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §177. 

attended  by  phantasms  of  its  own.  These  phantasms  are  not  confined  to  vision 
alone.  The  other  senses  have  their  appropriate  phantasms ;  the  ear  has 
sounds,  the  touch  various  feelings,  and  the  nostrils  distinguishable  odors. 
None  of  these,  however,  are  as  definite,  or  as  permanent,  or  as  clearly  distin- 
guishable as  the  phantasms  of  vision. 

It  is  important  to  distinguish  these  phantasms  or  apparitions  from  the 
images  of  the  phantasy  proper.  Unless  we  do,  we  cannot  clearly  understand 
or  interpret  the  phenomena  of  delirium,  and  certain  other  forms  of  mental 
aberration.  Two  agencies  concur  in  their  production — the  action  of  the 
phantasy  by  means  of  the  spiritual  image,  and  that  of  the  sense-organ  which 
is  appropriately  concerned.  It  has  already  been  observed,  that  when  even  a 
sense-object  is  imaged,  especially  if  it  be  vividly  and  continuously  pictured 
by  the  phantasy,  as  a  sound  or  sight,  the  mind's  attention  to  it  tends  to 
awaken  a  sympathetic  activity  of  the  sense-organ  by  which  the  object  was  ori- 
ginally perceived. 

Again,  in  the  sense-organism  psychologically  considered,  there  is  a  tendency  to 
be  excited  or  impressed  a  second  time  without  a  sense-object,  in  a  manner  similar 
to  that  which  the  presence  of  the  object  originally  occasioned.  Sometimes,  in 
conditions  of  the  system  not  known  to  be  abnormal,  this  excitement  goes  so  far 
as  to  produce  in  the  mind  all  the  effects  of  transient  sense-perception.  As  a  con- 
sequence, the  mind  has  actual  percepts  without  material  objects,  especially  on 
•waking  from  sleep.  The  mind  sees  colored  spectra,  and  hears  sounds  when  there 
are  no  material  things  or  objects  to  be  seen  or  heard.  These  occasional  phe- 
nomena clearly  establish  the  truth  that  the  sense-organism,  without  the  stimulus 
of  an  object,  can  be  brought  into  a  condition  nearly  allied  to  that  to  which  it  is 
excited  by  that  object.  Whether  the  excitement  is  mental  or  physical,  is  of  little 
import,  provided  the  excitement  is  furnished.  Let,  now,  the  sense-organism  be 
in  a  condition  of  morbid  sensibility,  and  let  the  phantasy  be  also  morbidly 
aroused,  and  it  is  not  unnatural  that  phantasms  should  take  material  forms  or  be 
invested  with  material  qualities.  But  let  the  judgment  itself  be  disturbed  by 
more  serious  disarrangements  of  the  nervous  system ;  and  the  raving  madness 
which  sees  nothing  but  phantasms  where  it  ought  to  see  realities,  or  which  in- 
vests the  real  objects  of  sense  with  fantastic  shapes  and  attributes,  are  fully  ex- 
plained (cf.  $$  78,  143,  150). 

$  177.  It  is  no  part  of  our  duty  to  give  a  scientific  theory  of  in- 
Insanity.  sanity.     We  have  only  attempted  to  explain  the  part  which  the 

phantasy  has  in  the  mental  operations,  under  this  condition  of  ir- 
regular psychical  activity.  We  ought  also  to  add,  that  it  is  by  no  means  uni- 
versally the  case  that  the  insane  are  haunted  with  phantasms.  It  often  happens 
that  insanity  is  the  result  of  mere  mental  confusion  or  distraction,  such  as  may 
result  from  the  excessive  rapidity  or  the  excessive  preponderance  of  certain  or- 
ganic or  vital  sense-perceptions.  These  may  so  distract  or  preoccupy  the  atten, 
tion,  as  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  a  cool  judgment  or  a  controlled  activity  in 
respect  to  any.  matter  whatever.  In  such  cases,  the  phantasy,  as  well  as  the  per- 
ceptions, are  either  so  hurried  and  flighty,  or  so  fixed  and  recurring,  that  the  ac- 
tivities of  memory,  comparison,  and  judgment  are  all  untrustworthy,.  Or,  again, 
the  mind,  and  not  the  body,  under  some  overmastering  passion,  has  given  to  the 
phantasy  such  complete  control  over  the  other  powers,  as  to  disturb  the  equili- 
brium of  spiritual  activity.  In  these  cases  the  phenomena  are  purely  mental. 


$  178.  REPRESENTATION.^THE   IMAGINATION.  295 

The  sense-perceptions  are  correctly  made.  The  vision  is  disturbed  by  no  spectrum. 
There  are  no  special  disturbances  of  the  bodily  sensations.  But  the  mind  is  oc- 
cupied with  inferences  incorrectly  derived  from  its  past  experiences  or  its  present 
condition.  It  is  haunted  with  depressing  images,  or  gloomy  forebodings.  Its 
distracted  phantasy  is  so  overpowered  as  to  set  at  naught  the  testimony  of  the 
senses,  the  asseverations  of  trusted  friends,  the  conclusions  of  its  own  better  judg- 
ment, the  principles,  the  faith,  and  the  hopes  which  had  been  the  soul's  support 
f  and  guide. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

REPRESENTATION. — (3.)   THE  IMAGINATION  OR  CREATIVE 
POWER. 

From  the  phantasy,  the  most  passive  form  and  exercise  of 
representation,  we  proceed  to  the  imagination,  its  most  active  and 
elevated  energy. 

§  178.  In  treating  of  the  creative  imagination,  we 
shall  first  consider  the  general  characteristics,  condi-   materials  com- 

,.  -IT  i  •    i  j.i  •  •       ra°"     to     the 

tions,  and  laws,  which  are  common  to  this  power  in  imagination. 
all  its  phases  and  degrees  of  activity,  and  then  the 
special  forms  in  which  it  is  manifested. 

Our  first  duty  is,  to  consider  the  conditions,  laws,  and  charac- 
teristics which  are  common  to  the  creative  imagination.  We 
ask,  first  of  all,  what  are  the  materials  which  are  furnished  to 
this  power  from  nature  and  experience,  and  which  it  is  forced  to 
make  use  of  in  all  its  creations?  In  answer  to  this  general 
question,  we  would  say: — 

1.  Space  and  time  are  always  employed  in  these  processes,  and 
always  appear  in  their  products.  The  objects  that  are  conceived, 
whether  by  the  poet,  the  dramatist,  or  the  inventor,  as  forming 
the  scenes  in  which  their  personages,  materials,  or  machinery  are 
introduced,  or  within  which  they  are  conceived,  are  invariably 
subjected  to  the  laws  and  relations  of  space.  The  acts  and 
events  which  are  described  or  imagined,  all  take  place  under  the 
conditions  of  time.  They  precede  and  follow  one  another.  They 
are  either  present,  past,  or  future.  The  world  of  the  imagi- 


296  THE    HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  179. 

nation  is  always  a  world  of  imagined  space  and  imagined  time, 
as  the  world  of  reality  is  a  world  of  real  space  and  real  time. 

2.  The  necessary  and   universal    thought-conceptions,  and  re- 
lations under  which  we  cognize  real  beings,  are  always  supposed 
and  employed.     Every  being  and  thing  which  we  imagine,  we 
imagine   more  or  less  distinctly,  as   substance  with  attributes, 
as  cause  and  effect  under  proper  conditions,  and  as  means  and 
ends. 

It  is  not  intended  that  the  imagination  pictures  those  in  their 
abstract  form.  They  cannot  be  imaged,  any  more  than  they 
can  be  perceived  by  sense  or  consciousness.  But  as  concrete 
objects  can  be  perceived  only  under  these  relations,  so  when  they 
are  imaged,  they  can  and  must  be  imaged  as  connected  by 
means  of  them. 

3.  The  imagination  is  limited  to  the  material  qualities  which 
nature  furnishes.     We  cannot  create  or  conceive  of  new  colors 
by  any  exertion  of  creative  energy.     Hume  and  Tetens   both 
suggest,  that  if  the  imagination  were  furnished  with  the  colors 
blue  and  yellow,  it  could,  by  combining  the  two,  image  the  color 
green,  without  ever  having  seen  it.     The  mistake  is  twofold. 
The  eye  does  not  see  the  blue  and  yellow  in  the  green,  but  the. 
product  which  results  from  the  combination  of  the  two.     The 
imagination  cannot  go  beyond  what  the  bodily  eye  furnishes. 

In  a  similar  way,  the  imagination  is  limited  with  respect  to  all 
the  simple  qualities  of  sense,  to  tastes,  and  sounds,  and  odors, 
and  tactual  feels. 

4.  In  like  manner,  the  imagination  is  limited  to  the  spiritual 
phenomena  and  processes  which  consciousness  reveals,  as  well  as 
to  the  powers  which  these  processes  suppose.     What  it  is  to 
know,  and  feel,  and  will,  we  know  by  the  varieties  of  our  own 
experience ;    and  what  a  being  is  who  can  exert  these  activities, 
we  are  taught  by  consciousness.     In  this  way  we  learn  what  are 
the  acts,  and  products,  and  capacities  of  spirit. 

The  power  of  §  179.  We  inquire,  second,  What  new  products 
Son  toafreate  can  ^e  evolved  and  created  out  of  these  materials  b^ 
new  products.  the  imagination  pr0per?  We  follow  the  order  of 
the  topics  already  adopted. 

(1.)  In  respect  to  space  and  time,  though  we  cannot  imagine 
objects  to  exist  nor  events  to  occur  out  of  relation  to  each  or  to 


§179.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   IMAGINATION.  297 

both,  yet  we  can  imagine  them  to  bear  relations  to  each,  to 
which  there  is  no  type  of  reality. 

The  imagination  can  make  changes  in  the  size  of  objects.  The 
types  of  animals  actually  existing,  as  of  the  horse,  the  man,  the 
elephant,  and  the  mouse,  lie  within  certain  extremes,  the  greatest 
and  least  of  their  kind  ever  known.  The  imagination  scorns 
these  limits,  and  it  can  give  us  horses  of  every  size,  from  the 
ponies  of  Queen  Mab  up  to  steeds  large  enough  for  the  uses 
of  a  giant.  It  can  create  men  smaller  than  'Lilliputians,  and 
larger  than  the  contrasted  Brobdignags.  It  can  make  elephants 
smaller  than  mice,  and  mice  larger  than  elephants. 

Again,  the  position  or  situation  of  objects  is  determined  by  the 
character  of  their  material  and  the  laws  of  nature.  Mountains 
hold  a  certain  relation  to  vallies,  streams  to  meadows,  groves  to 
lawns,  houses  to  gardens,  cities  to  harbors,  roads,  and  rivers  ;  so 
that,  where  we  find  the  one,  we  expect  to  find  the  other.  But 
the  imagination  acknowledges  none  of  these  relations  or  laws. 
While  it  must  imagine  all  these  objects  as  spatial,  it  can  place 
them  as  it  will  in  space.  It  can  plant  a  garden  in  a  desert  a 
thousand  leagues  from  a  dwelling  of  man.  It  can  build  and 
people  a  city,  without  harbor,  river,  or  road. 

There  are  fixed  forms  of  objects  in  nature,  as  the  drooping 
elm,  the  aspiring  pine,  the  umbrageous  beech,  the  massive  and 
gnarled  oak.  In  rock  and  mountain,  certain  types  are  ever  re- 
curring. The  same  is  true  of  the  form  of  the  horse,  the  deer, 
the  dog,  and  of  man  himself.  But  the  imagination  can  draw 
more  graceful  lines  than  nature  has  ever  shaped,  the  material 
with  which  she  works  being  more  intractable,  and  the  action  of 
staining  and  decomposing  elements  being  inevitable.  Following 
.her  idealizing  images,  art  has  given  us  the  Egyptian  tomb  and 
pyramid,  the  Chinese  pagoda,  the  Grecian  temple,  and  the 
Gothic  cathedral,  none  of  which  are  copied  from  nature,  though 
all  have  been  suggested  by  her  forms. 

In  one  aspect  they  surpass  nature,  for  their  lines  are  more  con- 
summately drawn,  and  their  forms  are  moulded  more  perfectly. 
We  even  measure  nature  by  what  art  has  done,  and  commend 
her  by  epithets  taken  from  art.  We  say  of  the  stem  of  the  pine 
or  the  elm,  It  shoots  up  like  a  pillar.  We  call  the  forest  a 
"pillared  shade."  We  say  of  a  man,  He  stands  like  a  statue; 

13* 


298  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §179. 

or,  He  is  an  Apollo,  for  graceful  strength  ;  She  is  a  Venus,  for 
beauty. 

In  time,  also,  the  imagination  has  boundless  range.  It  must 
represent  all  actions  and  events,  as  either  now,  before,  or  after, 
yet  it  can  do  as  it  pleases  as  to  which  shall  be  now,  before  or 
after.  Nature,  in  respect  to  time  relations,  acts  after  its  own 
laws  and  within  its  own  limits.  The  imagination  can  override 
them  all,  and  accordingly  she  can  make  Puck  "put  a  girdle 
roundabout  the  earth  in  forty  minutes,"  and  Uriel  "glide  on 
a  sunbeam,"  "  swift  as  a  shooting  star." 

There  are  also  special  creations  which  the  imagination  forms 
and  constructs,  of  which  space  and  time  are  assumed  as  the  only 
required  conditions.  Let  all  material  existences  be  conceived  to 
cease  to  be,  leaving  only  an  empty  void  within  any  limits  which 
may  be  supposed,  and  in  that  void  which  is  feigned,  the  imagi- 
nation can  construct  the  surface  with  its  ever-varied  outlines, 
and  the  solid  of  every  conceivable  form.  These  are  purely 
mental  constructions,  and  exist  only  for  the  mind  and  by  the 
mind  which  forms  them.  They1  form  may  be  suggested  by 
certain  material  things  with  which  we  are  conversant.  But  the 
line,  the  surface,  and  the  solid  constructed  by  the  mind,  are  far 
more  perfectly  "drawn  and  moulded  than  any  that  nature  has 
ever  furnished  in  material  objects,  or  than  art  has  imitated  with 
material  instruments. 

The  imagination  can  also  sweep  all  actual  events  and  pheno- 
mena from  the  line  of  time,  and  then  plant  along  its  course  the 
shadows  of  events  that  shall  only  symbolize  or  represent  its  suc- 
cessive intervals  or  instants.  It  can  also  group  and  combine 
these  as  it  will.  Real  events,  as  they  precede  and  follow  one 
another,  may  incite  to  these  acts  of  pure  construction ;  but  the  acts 
and  the  products  which  they  excite  and  suggest  are  to  be  referred 
to  the  creative  energy  of  the  imagination.  What  relations  these 
hold  to  the  distinctions  of  number,  will  be  discussed  in  the  proper 
place  (§  280). 

(2.)  In  the  world  of  matter,  the  imagination  can  create  no  new 
material,  but  it  can  divide  and  combine  the  parts  of  the  material 
things  with  which  it  is  familiar,  so  as  to  form  new  existences. 

The  head  and  trunk  of  a  man  it  can  fit  to  the  shoulders  and 
body  of  a  horse.  It  can  form  a  mermaid — part  woman,  part 


§  179.  REPRESENTATION. — THE  IMAGINATION.  299 

fish.  It  can  provide  men,  women,  and  children  with  wings,  and 
turn  them  into  angels  and  cherubs.  It  can  represent  any  animal 
with  a  human  head.  It  can  add  to  the  head  of  a  man  the  ears 
of  an  ass,  and  give  to  another  the  mouth  and  nose  of  a  puppy. 
It  can  connect  the  part  or  the  whole  of  any  plant  with  the  part 
or  the  whole  of  any  animal,  making  a  cabbage  to  sprout  from 
the  hump  of  a  camel,  or  a  rose-branch  to  nod  from  the  head  of  a 
horse,  as  we  see  delineated  in  some  quaint  pictures  and  engrav- 
ings. It  can  recombine  and  rearrange  the  parts  of  inorganic 
things  as  it  will,  making  a  rock  to  be  balanced  upon  a  roof-ridge, 
and  a  bridge  to  stand  dry  in  a  desert.  There  is  no  limit  to  the 
grotesque  and  fantastic  combinations  which  can  be  made  with 
the  parts  and  the  wholes  of  material  objects.  Though  the  ima- 
gination cannot  invent  a  single  new  sensible  or  material  quality, 
it  can  connect  such  qualities  as  nature  has  never  combined, 
making  naming  red  dogs,  bright  yellow  oxen,  woolly  horses,  talk- 
ing mules,  musical  jackasses,  golden  mountains,  rivers  of  wine, 
ponds  of  beer,  and  fountains  of  hot  coffee. 

(3.)  In  respect  to  spiritual  beings,  the  imagination  is  limited  by 
similar  constraints  and  invested  with  a  similar  freedom.  A  spirit 
has  no  visible  or  extended  parts ;  therefore,  as  a  spirit,  it  cannot 
be  divided  and  recombined;  but  a  spirit  may -be  connected  with 
any  kind  or  form  of  matter,  may  be  imprisoned  in  trees,  may 
animate  a  cloud,  may  dwell  in  an  animal  form,  or  "leap  like 
Minerva  from  the  head  of  Jupiter !" 

Not  a  single  new  spiritual  capacity  can  be  invented  or  ima- 
gined. The  loftiest  and  the  purest  of  spirit-creations,  simply 
feel,  desire,  and  will.  The  humblest  and  the  most  degraded  can 
do  no  less.  We  cannot  invest  the  highest  archangel  with  any 
endowment  other  than  these.  We  cannot  refuse  to  the  lowliest 
animal  some  poor  analoga  to  some  of  these  functions. 

In  respect  to  the  limitations  and  the  conditions  of  the  exercise 
of  the  intellect,  the  imagination  has  the  widest  range  of  creative 
power.  It  can  conceive  the  intellect  of  a  God  that  creates  all 
that  it  discerns,  and  discerns  whatever  it  creates,  without  condi- 
tion or  process,  by  an  all-penetrating  and  all-comprehending  in- 
tuition. It  can  also  imagine  the  intellect  of  an  idiot,  struggling 
to  free  itself  from  the  gross  obstructions  of  a  diseased  body,  and 
fixing  its  painful  attention  in -the  first  beginnings  of  knowledge. 


300  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  179. 

In  respect  of  feeling,  it  can,  on  the  one  handx  imagine  pure 
love  glowing  with  the  energy  of  seraphic  fervor,  or  simple  hatred 
raging  with  fiendish  malignity ;  and,  on  the  other,  the  most  im- 
perfect and  feeblest  actings  of  either. 

There  is  no  limit  to  the  variety  of  spiritual  beings  with  which 
the  imaginary  world  can  be  peopled,  nor  to  the  variety  of  the 
conditions  of  being  and  acting  to  which  they  can  be  subjected. 
The  graceful  Titania,  with  her  frolicsome  and  mischief-making 
fairies ;  the  hideous  Caliban,  in  body  and  spirit  the  very  contrast 
of  the  wonderful  Miranda ;  Satan  and  Abdiel ;  are  examples  of 
the  variety  of  spiritual  creations  which  the  imagination  can  con- 
struct out  of  its  limited  materials. 

(4.)  We  have  seen  that  the  imagination  cannot  step  without 
the  charmed  circle  of  thought-conceptions  and  relations.  Some 
of  the  examples  of  what  it  can  do  within  that  circle  by  newly 
conjoining  attributes  of  material  and  spiritual  beings,  have 
already  been  given.  It  cannot  conceive  of  beings,  except  as 
substances  and  attributes,  but  it  can  join  any  attribute,  of  any 
intensity  and  compass,  to  any  substance.  It  cannot  break  them 
from  that  connection  which  binds  all  real  beings  and  events  as 
causes  and  effects  ;  but  it  can  make  any  existence  to  serve  as  the 
cause  of  any  other  as  its  effect,  and  thus  can  reverse  the  whole 
order  of  actual  being  by  its  capricious  and  fantastic  combina- 
tions.; or  it  can  enlarge  the  bounds  of  science  by  its  happy  sug- 
gestions of  undiscovered  powers  and  laws,  and  the  appliances  of 
art  by  applications,  before  unimagined,  of  familiar  agencies  to 
new  results.  All  things  in  the  world  of  fancy  must  be  conceived 
as  fitted  for  some  end,  but  the  adaptations  may  be  imagined  as 
wildly  as  the  caprices  of  a  madman's  dream,  or  as  wisely  as  the 
perfect  fitness  which  we  believe  has  been  arranged  by  the  all- 
wise  God. 

With  this  view  before  us  of  the  materials  to  which  the  imagi- 
nation is  limited,  and  of  the  products  into  which  it  transforms 
them,  we  are  prepared  to  inquire,  third,  How  does  the  imagina- 
tion effect  these  changes ;  or  what  is  the  precise  work  which  the 
imagination  performs  in  its  creative  function  ?  We  observe,  in 
answer  to  these  inquiries,  There  are  three  different  methods  in 
which  its  creative  power  is  shown.  (1.)  The  imagination  can  re- 
combine  and  arrange  the  constituents  of  nature  in  new  forms 


§  181.  KEPKESENTATION. — THE  IMAGINATION.  301 

and  products.  (2.)  It  can  idealize  and  apply  the  relations  of  ob- 
jects to  extension  and  time.  (3.)  It  can  form  and  employ  an 
ideal  standard  for  the  intensity  and  the  direction  of  the  activity 
of  natural  or  spiritual  agents,  and  for  the  material  objects  and 
acts  which  symbolize  them.  We  will  consider  these  acts  in  their 
order. 

§  180.  The  examples  already  cited  both  prove  and 
illustrate  the  fact,  that  the  imagination  very  largely  JJj^JjJJj^ 
acts   in  the  way  of  reuniting  and   rearranging  the  £einatfionhe 
materials  furnished  to  experience,  and  they  also  sug- 
gest the  limitations  under  which  this  function  can  be  employed. 
It  is  obvious,  also,  that  the  so-called  parts  of  objects,  and  objects 
treated  as  parts,  are  as  minute  and  numerous  as  any  species  of 
analysis  can  separate. 

There  are  sense-parts  and  sense- wholes,  representative-parts  and 
representative-wholes,  and  thought-parts  and  thought-wholes. 
A  whole,  as  a  building  or  tree,  may  be  a  part  of  the  landscape 
with  which  it  is  connected ;  while  it  is  still  a  whole  with  respect 
to  its  doors,  windows,  roof,  etc.,  and  whatever  else  makes  it  quan- 
titatively complete.  This  is  an  example  of  sense-wholes  and 
sense-parts.  Again,  the  several  properties  or  relations  of  the 
dwelling  or  the  tree,  its  form,  dimensions,  color,  smell,  etc.,  are 
thought-parts,  which  can  be  combined  into  new  wholes,  by  taking 
away  and  adding,  as  we  have  already  seen.  If  these  new  wholes 
are  individual,  they  are  formed  from  representation  ;  if  they  are 
generalized,  they  are  the  work  of  thought  proper,  or  logical 
wholes  in  the  larger  sense  of  the  word.  The  synthesis  of  the 
creative  imagination  reaches  as  far  and  is  applied  as  widely  as 
the  analysis  of  sense  and  thought  can  go.  The  imagination  may 
reunite  into  varying  products  all  that  perception  and  conscious- 
ness separate  or  distinguish,  and  under  every  one  of  the  rela- 
tions in  which  they  apprehend  their  objects.  Thesp  relations  are 
its  only  limits  and  laws. 

§  181.  We  have  already  referred  to  the  fact,  that     Theidoaiiza 
the  imagination,  in  every  work  of  art,  goes  beyond,   JJSJ 
and  outdoes  the  perfection  and  refinement  of  nature.  and  time  in 

art,    pad    mr 

The  forms  which  sculpture  moulds,  and  which  draw-   thematfcai 

science 

ing  outlines,  are,  as  we  have  seen,  more  perfect  than 

any  which  nature  produces ;  certainly,  they  are  more  perfect  than 


302  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §181. 

any  which  the  senses  can  discern,  or  which  nature  can  furnish  as 
models.  These  constructions  cannot  be  explained  by  any  pro- 
cess of  analysis,  or  selection  of  the  parts  of  real  objects,  whether 
this  analysis  is  called  mental,  or  is  performed  by  sensible  instru- 
ments. The  lines  and  shapes  of  grace  which  have  been  copied 
in  marble  or  drawn  upon  canvas,  in  respect  to  delicacy  of  tran- 
sition and  ease  of  movement,  far  surpass  those  of  any  living 
being  or  actually  existing  thing.  They  are  suggested  by,  but 
not  copied  from,  any  such  beings  or  things.  The  story  that 
the  Grecian  painter  assembled  from  every  quarter  the  most 
celebrated  beauties,  that  he  might  borrow  some  charm  from 
each,  and  combine  all  together  in  a  perfect  work,  could  never 
have  been  true.  While  it  is  true  that  nature,  in  some  respects, 
far  outstrips  and  surpasses  what  art  can  do,  it  is  true,  on  the 
other,  that  the  imagination,  in  her  province,  can  go  far  beyond 
the  attainments  of  nature.  As  we  have  already  said,  we  even 
measure  nature  by  some  of  the  achievements  of  art.  We  ap- 
ply the  ideals  of  the  imagination  still  more  frequently  to  try 
and  to  test  what  spiritual  achievement  furnishes. 

Those  peculiar  products  which  are  employed  in  mathematical 
science,  and  which  are  known  as  geometrical  and  numerical 
quantities,  cannot  be  made  by  any  process  of  separation  or  com- 
bination of  the  parts  of  material  objects.  In  matter  there  are 
no  points,  lines,  surfaces,  solids,  and  spheres,  such  as  geometry 
conceives  and  reasons  of.  The  unequal  faces  of  a  material  cube, 
the  rough  edges  formed  by  two  adjacent  faces  of  a  solid,  the 
obtuse  corners  in  which  three  adjacent  faces  terminate,  are  none 
of  them  these  objects  of  thought,  nor  are  they  wholes  from 
which  these  can  be  evolved  or  separated  as  elements  or  consti- 
tuting parts.  The  line  is  not  part  of  an  edge,  nor  is  the  surface 
a  part  of  the  material  face.  If  they  were  parts  which  could  be 
separated  by  actual  sense-perception  from  a  whole,  they  must 
exist  in  that  whole,  or  be  distinguished  as  one  of  its  material 
constituents. 

If  it  be  said  that  these  are  distinguished  and  separated  in  the 
mind,  that  the  process  of  analysis  or  abstraction  is  mental,  it  is 
still  true  that  the  mind  can  only  separate  what  it  first  discerns. 
These  objects  cannot  be  discerned  by  bodily  sense,  nor  can  they 
be  represented  by  simple  imagination.  They  must  be  created 


§182.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   IMAGINATION.  303 

by  the  mind,  for  the  mind  to  behold,  when  the  mind  beholds 
them.  It  may  be  properly  said  to  construct  or  to  create  them — 
first,  in  individual  examples  and  applications,  and  then  by  rapid 
and  easy  generalizations.  An  individual  point,  line,  surface, 
triangle,  solid,  sphere,  is  first  constructed  by  the  mind  in  relation 
to  and  by  suggestion  of  a  rude  material  occasion,  and  the  pro- 
duct is  then  generalized  by  the  ordinary  processes  and  conceived 
as  resembling  every  similar  creation,  so  that  whatever  is  true  of 
the  one,  is  readily  affirmed  of  all. 

What  is  true  of  geometrical,  is  true  also  of  numerical 
quantity.  Numbers  symbolize  the  relations  of  objects  contem- 
plated in  a  series,  as  constituting  a  whole,  divisible  into  unit 
parts.  In  order  to  conceive  of  number,  the  mind  must  first  view 
objects  in  all  these  relations.  But  in  nature,  so  far  as  the  senses 
can  know,  there  are  no  equal  parts  constituting  divisible  wholes. 
Whether  the  ultimate  molecules  or  atoms  of  matter  are  or  are 
not  equal,  none  such  are  discerned  by  the  senses.  The  successive 
mental  states  which  consciousness  observes  and  by  which  it  first 
apprehends  and  measures  the  successive  portions  of  time,  are 
none  of  them  observed  in  actual  experience  to  be  equally  long 
or  short.  All  these  must  be  idealized  in  the  imagination  before 
they  are  separated  by  its  analysis  and  combined  in  its  creations. 
We  proceed  to 

§  182.  The  spiritual  acts  and  states  of  which  we 

.  3.  The  forma- 

are  conscious,  diner  from  one  another  in  respect   to  tion  of  an  ideal 

,        ,.  i'ii  •  i         standard      for 

the  direction  which  they  take — i.  e.,  in  respect  to  the  psychical  acts 
objects  on  which  they  terminate,  and  hence  to  the 
quality  of  the  affections — as  well  as  in  respect  to  the  energy  or 
intensity  with  which  they  are  performed.  But  none  ever  reach 
a  perfection  in  either  respect  which  is  so  complete  as  can  be  con- 
ceived. Whatever  or  however  we  know,  feel,  or  choose ;  we 
can  conceive  it  possible  to  surpass  what  we  actually  do  or  expe- 
rience. A  perfect  standard  is  created  by  the  imagination.  It 
cannot  be  derived  from  the  parts  which  we  observe  in  ourselves 
or  others,  because  the  parts  are  no  more  perfect  than  arc 
the  wholes.  Consequently,  whenever  we  perceive  dimly  and 
believe  that  we  might  perceive  more  clearly,  or  whenever  we 
would  feel  warmly  or  purely,  or  choose  rightly,  and  our  feel- 
ings or  choices  do  not  satisfy  our  tastes  or  our  conscience, 


304  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  18  A 

we  then  create  for  ourselves  an  ideal  standard  of  spiritual 
achievement. 

In  respect,  also,  to  the  expression  of  these  ideals  in  material 
forms,  the  imagination  creates  and  applies  the  ideals  which  it 
always  aims  but  always  fails  to  reach.  Whether  the  medium 
of  expression  be  language — the  language  of  gestures,  of  looks, 
of  tones,  or  of  articulate  speech — or  whether  it  be  lines,  or  color, 
or  solid  form,  as  employed  by  the  draughtsman,  the  painter,  or 
the  sculptor,  it  is  all  the  same.  The  use  which  we  can  make  of 
the  medium  is  never  so  perfect  as  our  ideal  of  what  is  possible. 
As  we  have  noticed  already,  every  such  medium,  physically  re- 
garded, falls  short  of  the  psychical  perfection  which  we  can 
conceive — i.  e.t  create — in  the  mind.  When  this  medium  or 
material  is  required,  not  only  to  set  forth  an  idea  of  simple  out- 
line, form,  or  color,  but  to  represent  another  ideal  of  thought, 
feeling,  and  passion,  then  it  is  found  to  be  doubly  true  that  the 
ideals  which  the  mind  can  frame,  rise  far  above  the  reality 
which  the  voice  or  hand  can  execute.  Hence  it  is  that  the  ideal 
excellence  of  the  poet,  the  orator,  the  actor,  the  musician,  and  the 
artist,  is  ever  higher  than  his  achievements — that  the  one  flees 
before  the  other  like  its  shadow,  and  can  never  be  overtaken. 

The  ideals  of  science  and  of  art,  of  achievement  and  of  duty, 
are  the  products  of  that  form  of  psychical  activity  which  is 
properly  called  the  creative  imagination.  It  is  imaginative, 
because  the  representative  or  imaging  power  is  conspicuously 
prominent  in  its  functions.  It  is  creative,  because  there  is  no 
counterpart  in  nature  from  which  its  objects  and  products  are 
literally  transcribed  or  copied.  But  this  is  not  all.  The  reason 
and  the  feelings  are  conspicuous,  and  both  rational  and  emotional 
relations  are  recognized  and  controlling.  The  creative  function  is 
rendered  possible  by  the  union  of  the  thinking  power  with  thq 
imaging  power ;  the  joint  action  of  both  resulting  in  those  ideal 
products  which  address  the  intellectual  and  emotional  nature. 

The  ideals  of  the  mathematical  imagination  are  only  possible 
when  the  imagination  has  been  disciplined:  by  thought.  One 
chalk  or  pencil  line  is  narrower  than  another,  one  of  the  lami 
iia3  of  mica  is  thinner  than  another.  As  we  divide  these  lines 
and  cleave  off  these  laminae,  we  seem  to  approximate  to  the  ideal 
line  and  the  ideal  surface,  simply  because  the  senses  and  the 


§  182.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   IMAGINATION.  305 

imagination  are  less  distracted  and  occupied  with  sense  or  imaged 
properties.  The  imagination  selects,  therefore,  the  line  or  sur- 
face whose  thickness  is  least  obvious  to  the  senses,  to  suggest  or 
represent  the  sole  relation  to  space  with  which  the  intellect  is  for 
the  moment  concerned ;  or,  which  is  even  more  satisfactory,  it 
takes  for  a  point  an  object  whose  dimensions  are  the  smallest  dis- 
cernible to  the  senses  or  picturable  to  the  imagination,  and  con- 
siders it  simply  as  moved  or  movable  directly  to  another  point 
like  itself,  and  thus  constructs  in  the  imagination  the  mathemati- 
cal line.  That  is,  it  begins  with  an  object  or  an  image  as  far 
removed  from  sense  as  possible,  and  uses  it  so  as  to  suggest  the 
various  relations  which  extended  matter  holds  to  space ;  or,  to 
speak  more  exactly,  to  other  matter  extended  in  space.  By  the 
imagined  motion  of  this  line,  it  proceeds  in  a  similar  way  to 
construct  the  surface,  etc.,  etc.  The  so-called  approximation 
of  the  actual  to  the  ideal  line  and  surface,  consists  in  the  more 
facile  suggestion  of  the  relations  in  question  by  means  of  one 
reality  rather  than  by  another. 

The  ideal  of  the  artist  depends  on  the  relations  of  outline,  form, 
color,  etc.,  etc.,  to  aesthetic  pleasure ;  whatever  may  be  its  sources 
and  kinds.  He  brings  the  line,  the  model,  or  the  picture,  as  nearly 
as  his  materials  and  skill  will  allow, to  a  condition  in  which  there 
shalJ  be  no  drawbacks  to  the  pleasurable  effect  which  is  sought 
for.  As  long  as  a  single  distracting  or  inconsistent  feature  or 
property  is  prominent,  so  long  is  his  ideal  unreached.  As  this 
will  always  be  the  case  from  defect  of  materials  or  defect  of  skill, 
so  long  will  it  be  true  that  he  can  never  make  his  work  absolutely 
perfect,  and  that  his  ideal  of  what  he  imagines  might  be  possible, 
will  never  be  reached. 

The  ideal  of  the  inventor  is  some  agent,  or  combination  of 
agencies,  that  are  freed  from  the  limitations  which  pertain  to  the 
ordinary  machines  or  instruments.  These  he  illustrates  to  him- 
self by  fondly  and  sometimes  obstinately  conceiving  of  his  model 
only  in  those  relations  of  adaptation  and  capacity  which  he 
knows  it  to  possess,  and  overlooking  or  denying  other  limitations 
to  which  it  is  liable. 

The  ideals  of  psychical  and  moral  attainment  suffer  under  limi- 
tations of  another  sort.  We  select  the  most  satisfying  example 
of  the  actual  which  we  can  find,  and  fixing  our  attention  upon 


306  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  182, 

those  of  Ks  relations  which  we  desire  to  contemplate,  and  with- 
drawing it  from  all  defects  and  limitations,  we  make  the  example 
an  ideal  of  the  psychical  power  or  the  moral  excellence  which 
we  wish  exclusively  to  contemplate. 

If  the  ideal  excellence  is  contemplated  as  an  attainable  end 
of  our  being,  or  is  enforced  by  the  authority  of  conscience  or  the 
will  of  the  Supreme,  then  that  which  was  a  conceivable  ideal  is 
viewed  in  still  other  relations.  It  is  accepted  as  possible :  though 
an  ideal  of  the  imagination,  it  is  enforced  as  reasonable  and  obli- 
gatory. 

The  result  of  this  analysis  is  but  another  illustration  of  the 
interdependence  of  all  the  powers  upon  one  another,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  higher  functions  of  the  imagination  upon  thought 
and  reason.  It  enforces  and  explains  the  near  affinity  of  the 
imaging  with  the  thought-power.  It  also  indicates  the  advan- 
tage which  language  and  music  may  have  over  painting  and 
sculpture  in  expressing  and  suggesting  what  color  and  form 
cannot  convey. 

These  truths  also  enable  us  to  understand  and  explain  hoAv  it 
happens  that  all  ideas,  however  refined  and  elevated,  are  in  some 
sense  founded  upon  and  related  to  the  actual  experience  of  each 
individual.  A  person  born  and  nurtured  upon  a  plain,  who  had 
never  seen  a  hill  or  a  mountain,  can  scarcely  imagine  the  charm 
to  the  eye  and  the  excitement  to  the  mind  which  such  scenery 
imparts.  One  who  has  never  been  upon  the  sea,  can  neither 
picture  to  himself  nor  to  others  the  wild  sublimity  of  an  ocean 
tempest.  The  oriental,  basking  in  the  heat  of  a  tropical  sun, 
and  always  surrounded  by  the  fruits,  the  foliage,  and  the  flowers 
that  such  a  sun  alone  can  nourish,  cannot  form  an  ideal  picture 
of  an  arctic  winter.  Nor  can  the  Scandinavian,  out  of  the  pale 
sunlight  of  his  brightest  days,  or  the  most  luxuriant  vegetation 
of  his  starveling  summer,  construct  an  adequate  representation 
of  the  exuberant  life,  and  the  glowing  intensity  of  a  tropical 
landscape. 

The  actual  life  of  every  painter  and  every  poet,  in  the  mate- 
rials which  it  furnishes,  must  largely  determine  the  direction  and 
characteristics  of  his  imaginative  power.  From  the  writings  of 
Dante,  of  Milton,  of  Scott,  and  of  Bunyan,  as  well  as  from  the 
pictures  of  Raphael  and  Murillo,  of  Gainsborough  and  Wilkie, 


§  183.  REPRESENTATION.  —  THE   IMAGINATION.  307 

one  can  easily  conclude  as  to  the  place  of  their  birth,  the  kind 
of  education  which  they  received  from  the  books  and  men  and 
scenery  with  which  they  were  conversant. 

§  183.  It  follows  that  the  imagination  is  capable 
of  steady  growth,  and  requires  constant  cultivation.       tion 


This  training  and  growth  are  not,  however,  occa-  "1 


sional,  but  constant  ;  they  are  not  the  results  of  sepa- 
rate efforts,  which  are  consciously  directed  to  some  definite  ends 
of  creation,  but  are  the  consequents  of  an  activity  which  is  spon- 
taneous, irrepressible,  and  often  excessive.  Indeed,  in  all  minds 
the  creative  imagination  mingles  more  or  less  prominently  with 
the  other  mental  operations,  always  modifying  and  sometimes 
greatly  disturbing  the  acting  of  these  powers  and  their  results. 
In  sense-perception,  the  imagination  too  often  selects  for  itself 
what  it  will  see  or  hear,  and  brings  a  report  accordingly  of  what 
it  thinks  it  has  seen  and  heard.  After  the  desires  are  grown 
strong  and  the  character  is  fixed,  the  shaping  spirit  of  the  imagi- 
nation enters  largely  as  a  modifying  influence  into  the  perceptions. 
In  the  observations  of  consciousness,  and  the  reports  which  it 
records  of  what  it  has  seemed  only  to  observe,  the  same  influence 
and  the  same  effects  may  be  traced  of  its  creative  energy.  The 
observation  and  the  record  are  both  disturbed  by  the  power  to 
notice  what  we  are  anxious  to  find,  and  to'  leave  unobserved,  or  to 
imagine  that  we  cannot  see,  what  we  do  not  wish  to  find  to  be 
true.  In  the  act  of  recalling  for  ourselves  or  communicating  to 
others  what  we  may  have  actually  observed  or  experienced,  the 
creative  imagination  often  intrudes,  consciously  or  unconsciously 
biassed  by  the  desire  to  please  ourselves  or  our  fellow-men.  The 
frequent  and  strange  untrustworthiness  of  the  memory,  can  be 
accounted  for  only  by  the  selecting  or  idealizing  activity  of  the 
imagination,  when  it  seems  to  be  simply  recalling  the  actual  past. 
Inasmuch  as  the  thought-power,  in  its  various  acts  of  reaching 
general  conceptions  and  conclusions,  chiefly  depends  on  the 
fidelity  of  the  representative  power  in  reproducing  the  actual; 
whenever  it  creates  instead  of  recalling,  all  the  results  of  think- 
ing must  be  disturbed.  In  this  way  the  imagination  may  and 
does  enter  very  largely  into  the  acts  of  generalization,  inference, 
and  deduction  ;  disturbing  and  misleading  all. 


308  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  184. 

§  184.  More  generally  we  may  say,  this  creative 

Is  developed  •,        t          t  »•  • 

from  the  earn-  power  is  developed  at  the  earliest  period  ot  our  ex- 

est      till      the    *  i  •      *  »  n  i  j'±-  e 

latest  periods  istence,  and  is  busy  in  all  ages  and  conditions  ot  our 
human  life.  Childhood,  in  some  of  its  aspects,  is  the 
most  literal,  and  the  most  observant  of  reality ;  yet  even  then 
the  shaping  activity  of  the  imagination  is  always  busy,  filling 
the  real  world  with  another  of  fancies  and  dreams.  The  most 
trivial  and  unsuitable  objects  are  sufficient  to  excite  its  action. 
The  rude  and  unfinished  toy  is  more  acceptable  to  the  child  than 
the  more  costly  and  elaborate,  because  it  leaves  more  room  for 
the  constructive  power.  It  is  all  the  better  if  the  greater  part 
of  the  work  is  left  for  this  to  complete  and  supply.  The  sports 
and  plays  of  childhood  are  little  romances,  prompted  and  acted 
over  for  the  simple  exercise  and  delight  of  the  imagination.  In 
later  years  the  imagination  is  always  busy.  The  interest  which 
each  man  takes  in  the  position  in  life  which  he  holds  or  aspires 
after;  in  his  employments,  his  friends,  and  associates;  or  the 
dislike  and  disgust  which  he  conceives  for  each  and  for  all; 
arises  from  the  ideal  lights  with  which  the  imagination  invests 
them.  The  eye  of  the  painter  looks  every  landscape  into  a 
picture,  and  idealizes  every  face  that  it  beholds. 

The  lunatic,  the  lover,  and  the  poet 
Are  of  imagination  all  compact. 

Midsummer- Niglit' a  Dream.     Act  v. 

This  constant  activity  of  the  creative  power  explains  its  rapid 
growth,  and  its  development  into  the  capacity  for  sudden  and 
surprising  achievements. 

Whenever  an  occasion  calls  for  the  manifestation  of  the 
power  thus  trained  and  matured,  it  acts  as  by  the  force  and  with 
the  promptness  and  precision  of  apparent  inspiration.  Whether 
the  exigency  be  that  of  the  artist,  the  poet,  or  the  inventor,  the 
creative  power  formed  by  the  ceaseless  activity  of  years  meets 
its  requirements  from  the  resources  that  it  has  been  gradually 
providing.  These  resources  may  consist  in  part  of  the  countless 
creations  which  it  has  shaped  in  connection  with  its  perceptions 
and  reveries,  and  which  are  again  summoned  back  by  the 
memory  when  first  these  images  are  needed ;  or,  the  resources 
brought  to  the  exigency  may  be  the  dexterity  which  has  been 


§185.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   IMAGINATION.  309 

acquired  by  use,  and  which  dexterity  consists  in  the  power  of 
so  controlling  the  associating  power  that  it  shall  yield  the 
very  materials  which  are  wanted  for  the  imagination  to  work 
upon. 

In  no  other  way  can  we  explain  the  rapidity,  the  precision, 
and  the  success  with  which  the  constructing  and  inventive  power 
seems  to  act  when  it  is  tasked  to  its  utmost  energy  and  produces 
its  finest  results. 

§  185.  The  fact  has  been  noticed,  that  the  creative 

.  Special  appli- 

imagmation  is  present  by  its  actings  with  all  the  cations  of  the 
other  powers  of  the  soul,  and  determines  the  char-  The  poetic  iin- 
acter  of  their  products.  We  have  also  seen,  in  our 
analysis  of  ideals,  that  the  converse  is  true  as  well.  All  these 
powers  are  present  in  varied  proportions  and  energies  in  those 
activities  which  are  recognized  as  the  acts  of  the  imagination, 
and  give  a  varied  character  to  what  are  called  its  products, 
whether  they  appear  in  the  form  of  poetry,  fiction,  the  fine  arts, 
philosophy,  ethics,  or  religion. 

Of  these,  the  poetic  imagination  is  the  most  interesting,  and 
invites  to  a  special  analysis.  Poetry  may  be  defined,  that  use  of 
the  creative  power  which  is  employed  for  the  gratification  of 
the  emotional  nature  in  the  production  of  pictures  more  or  less 
elevating  in  their  associations,  which  are  fixed  and  expressed  by 
means  of  rhythmical  language. 

The  sources  from  which  the  poetic  power  derives  its  materials 
are  as  numerous  and  extensive  as  the  universe  of  matter  and  of 
spirit,  and  yet  but  few  of  these  materials  subserve  the  proper 
aims  of  the  poet.  While  the  poet  may  lawfully  appropriate 
truth  of  every  kind,  provided  it  serves  his  purpose,  yet  it  is  pre- 
eminently that  truth  which  holds  or  may  be  made  to  assume  some 
relation  to  man  which  is  of  use  in  poetry. 

This  human  truth,  which  these  pictures  suggest,  illustrate,  or 
enforce,  must  be  that  which  is  within  the  comprehension  and 
reach  of  all  men.  It  is  not  the  truth  of  the  schools,  nor  of  any 
special  and  limited  society,  not  that  which  is  capable  of  being 
conveyed  in  abstract  or  technical  words  or  understood  by  a  select 
few  after  a  special  training,  but  it  is  the  truth  which  is  open  and 
intelligible  to  all  men  upon  certain  implied  and  easily  recog- 
nized conditions.  This  is  the  first  of  the  three  characteristics 


310  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  185. 

which  are  recognized  by  Milton  in  his  brief  description  of  poetry 
as  "  simple,  sensuous,  and  passionate." 

Poetry  should  indeed  be  simple,  because  its  products  are  de- 
signed for  the  use  of  all  men  ;  and  its  images,  thoughts,  and 
words  should  be  easily  comprehended  by  all  who  have  attained 
certain  advantages  of  culture,  and  have  been  trained  to  a  certain 
degree  of  thought  and  feeling.  It  should  also  be  sensuous — that 
is,  it  deals  with  images,  not  with  generalized  and  scholastic  lan- 
guage. It  presents  pictures  to  the  mind's  eye,  not  refined  and 
subtle  reasonings  to  the  thought-powers.  It  introduces  action 
into  every  scene.  It  is  eminently  concrete  and  picturesque.  It 
should  also  be  passionate — i.  e.,  its  simple  and  pictured  truth 
should  come  from  a  soul  that  is  animated  by  warm  and  elevated 
emotions.  The  presence  of  feeling  as  a  requisite  of  all  that  com- 
position which  is  called  imaginative,  is  not  always  recognized  so 
distinctly  as  it  deserves  to  be.  Without  feeling,  and,  in  general, 
without  feeling  of  a  higher  kind,  the  mere  power  to  create  is  of 
little  worth,  and  its  results  are  of  little  interest.  Indeed,  without 
it  the  power  will  not  be  so  matured  into  a  predominant  energy, 
or  be  so  regulated,  as  to  become  a  ready  instrument  at  the  service 
of  its  possessor.  But  with  it,  the  creation  of  the  kind  of  pictures 
in  which  the  emotions  delight,  becomes  a  pastime  and  an  occu- 
pation, and  poetry  is  to  the  poet  its  own  "  exceeding  great  re- 
ward." Inasmuch  as  only  the  higher  emotions  act  with  a  steady 
and  intellectual  pressure  in  the  refined  occupation  of  poetic  cul- 
ture and  composition,  the  images  which  association  presents  and 
the  imagination  detains  and  reconstructs,  are  of  an  elevated 
character;  they  assume  the  lofty  and  ennobling  character  of 
ideals  in  the  better  sense  of  the  word.  Hence  it  becomes  so  gen- 
erally true  that  poetry  is  almost  necessarily  elevating  in  its  na- 
ture and  influence.  Hence  it  has  been  held  to  have  something 
in  it  that  is  divine. 

The  ends  of  poetry  are  not  always  elevated.  Poetry  may  serve  sim- 
ply or  chiefly  to  amuse.  When  this  happens ;  when  its  pictures  are 
employed  for  this  end,  and  the  associations  under  which  they,  are 
present,  and  the  emotions  which  they  excite,  are  not  especially  enno- 
bling, the  poetic  imagination  is,  in  the  language  of  later  critics,  called 
the  fancy.  When  the  aims  are  higher  than  simple  gratification, 
and  therefore  involve  more  elevated  associations  and  feelings,  it 


§186.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   IMAGINATION.  3H 

is  dignified  as  the  imagination  by  eminence,  and  so  designated. 
The  adjective  imaginative  follows  very  closely- this  higher'  sense 
of  the  word.  In  this  activity  the  image-making  power  simply 
plays  or  sports  with  images  for  their  picturesque  effects  and 
the  amusement  which  they  give — or  arranges  them  for  ends  of 
illustration  or  pleasure.  Though  it  abounds  in  images,  it  lacks 
the  loftier  attributes  of  the  higher  imagination. 

§  186.  It  is  peculiar  to  the  poetic  imagination  in  all 
higher  and  lower  forms  that  language  is  its  medium.  It 
is  not  essential  that  this  language  should  be  metrical ; 
though  a  rhythmic  movement,  and  the  regular  return  of  similar 
syllables  in  measured  accent  greatly  heightens  its  effects.  The 
poetic  power  is  also  shared  by  the  novelist,  the  dramatist,  and 
the  orator.  But  poetry  must  always  employ  language,  and  for 
this  reason  it  essentially  differs  from  painting,  sculpture,  and  even 
music.  Painting  and  sculpture  create  images  indeed,  but  they 
fix  them  permanently  upon  the  canvas  or  embody  them  in 
marble.  But  poetry  can  only  suggest  them  by  words ;  it  por- 
trays its  images  only,  as  by  words  it  wakens  in  the  imagination 
of  another,  images  similar  to  those  which  the  poet  himself  con- 
ceives. If  the  imagination  that  receives  is  feeble,  slow,  and  per- 
verse, it  is  in  vain  that  the  poet  tries  to  excite  it  to  follow  his 
lead.  But  if  it  is  strong,  quick,  and  sympathizing,  it  may  be 
aroused  by  the  words  of  the  poet  to  finer  creations  than  even  the 
poet  himself  has  known.  The  suggestive  power  of  words  gives 
to  the  poet  a  marvellous  advantage  in  the  greater  breadth  of  his 
field  and  the  variety  of  his  effects.  The  painter  and  sculptor  ap- 
parently present  all  their  work  to  the  eye.  It  is  true  that  this 
work  is  better  appreciated  by  one  eye  than  another.  In  one 
sense  it  takes  an  artist  to  interpret  an  artist ;  but  even  with  this 
allowance,  the  range  of  their  indications  is  narrow,  and  the  possi- 
bility of  manifold  suggestions  is  limited.  But  words  have  a  ca- 
pacity to  suggest  more  than  they  directly  convey,  and  hence  to 
take  up  into  their  import  a  multitude  of  pictures  according  to 
the  variety  of  uses  to  which  they  are  applied.  The  word  whose 
literal  import  is  prosaic,  trivial,  or  mean,  when  used  by  genius 
in  a  new  application,  becomes  poetic,  picturesque,  and  elevating. 
The  material  which  in  common  use  is  cold,  conventional,  and  dry, 
has  capacity,  by  dexterous  combinations,  to  awaken  delightful 


312  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §187. 

imagery,  and  to  kindle  exalted  associations.  In  this  way 
language  itself  becomes  permanently  enriched  and  elevated 
by  the  fact  that  it  has  been  employed  by  men  of  poetic 
genius. 

§  187.  The  relation  of  the  imagination  to  thought 
phic Imaging  has  been  the  subject  of  much  discussion,  and  has 
given  rise  to  no  little  diversity  of  opinion.  Many 
have  contended  that  its  influence  is  unfavorable  to  the  operations 
of  the  intellect  in  the  discovery  of  truth ;  that  it  distracts  the 
attention,  biasses  and  misleads  the  judgment,  and  disqualifies  for 
any  of  the  reasoning  processes.  On  the  other  hand,  the  fact  is 
undisputed  that  the  men  who  have  been  most  distinguished  in 
philosophy,  especially  as  discoverers  or  inventors,  have  been  re- 
markable for  reach  and  glow  of  imagination.  Striking  examples 
of  the  combination  of  the  poetic  imagination  with  eminent  phi- 
losophical genius  are  numerous.  We  name  Plato,  Kepler,  Gali- 
leo, Bctzon,  Newton,  Leibnitz,  Davy,  Owen,  Faraday,  and  Agassiz. 
A  moment's  reflection  will  show  how  this  must  necessarily  hap- 
pen. The  objects  of  present  observation  must  always  be  limited 
in  number.  They  must  reappear  in  the  form  of  representations. 
The  facts  with  which  the  philosopher  has  to  do  must  come  to 
him  in  the  form  of  images,  when  he  would  discern  their  various 
relations  and  subject  them  to  the  processes  of  thought.  It  is  im- 
portant that  these  should  be  readily  represented.  This  can  only 
happen  when  the  associative  power  is  wide  in  its  range  of  rela- 
tions, and  quick  in  its  activity.  These  qualities  almost  invariably 
accompany,  if  they  do  not  necessarily  involve,  great  energy  of 
the  creative  power. 

But  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  importance  of  a  vivid 
imagination,  as  furnishing  the  materials  for  the  philosopher,  to 
invention  it  is  entirely  essential ;  indeed,  without  an  active  imagi- 
nation, philosophic  invention  and  discovery  are  impossible.  To 
invent  or  discover,  is  always  to  recombine.  The  discoverer  of 
a  new  solution  for  a  problem,  or  a  new  demonstration  for  a 
theorem  in  mathematics,  the  inventor  of  a  new  application  of  a 
power  of  nature  already  known,  or  the  discoverer  of  a  power 
not  previously  dreamed  of,  the  discoverer  of  a  new  argument  to 
prove  or  deduce  a  truth  or  of  a  new  induction  from  facts  already 
accepted,  the  man  who  evolves  a  new  principle  or  a  new  definition 


§  187.  REPKESENTATION. — THE   IMAGINATION.  313 

in  moral  or  political  science — must  all  analyze  and  recombine  in 
the  mind  things,  acts,  or  events,  with  their  relations,  in  positions 
in  which  they  have  never  been  previously  observed  or  thought 
of.  This  recombination  is  purely  mental.  Every  discovery  is, 
in  fact,  a  work  of  the  creative  imagination. 

It  is  true  the  power  of  thought  must  attend  the  operation. 
Unless  the  representations  and  combinations  are  made  and  regu- 
lated with  reference  to  the  ends  of  thought,  they  will  be  made  in 
vain.  But  the  range  of  these  pictured  objects  must  be  wide ; 
every  one  of  them  must  be  vividly  conceived,  that^all  the  attri- 
butes, and  analogies,  and  relations  may  come  before  the  eye  of 
the  mind.  The  more  vividly  this  presentation  is  made,  provided 
the  processes  of  analysis  and  comparison  go  on  with  equal  energy, 
the  wider  is  the  field  of  discovery  and  the  greater  is  the  chance 
of  success.  The  world  of  images  is  also  far  more  plastic  than  the 
world  of  reality.  Its  materials  come  and  go  more  quickly  than 
real  objects.  More  can  be  crowded  at  once  into  the  field  of  view. 
The  mental  analysis  and  synthesis  required,  can  be  more  rapidly 
performed  upon  the  shadows  which  the  mind  summons  to  its 
service,  than  upon  the  things  which  it  can  slowly  call  up  and 
slowly  survey. 

But  there  are  special  reasons  why  the  peculiar  type  of  imagi- 
nation which  the  poet  requires  is  closely  allied  to  that  which' is 
essential  in  philosophic  genius.  To  the  higher  imagination,  as 
required  by  poets  and  orators,  there  is  always  requisite  the  power 
to  interpret  the  indications  or  analogies  of  the  beings  and  phe- 
nomena which  they  observe.  The  intensity  of  interest  that  fixes 
and  holds  the  mind  in  the  patient  attention  of  the  philosopher 
is  closely  allied  to  that  strongly  absorbed  and  controlling  enthu- 
siasm which  holds  the  poet  to  the  images  which  his  fancy 
summons  or  creates.  Both  dwell  in  such  a  world  with  an  enthu- 
siasm which  is  not  easily  understood  by  others.  That  which 
maintains  the  interest  of  each,  is  the  passion  of  each  for  the 
image-world  which  he  recreates.  That  which  gives  to  each  his 
mastery  over  this  world,  is  the  familiarity  which  results  from 
long-continued  practice  in  calling  up  its  objects  and  in  moulding 
them  at  his  will.  Such  a  mastery,  arising  from  such  a  continuity 
of  effort,  can  only  be  attained  by  that  passionate  interest  which 
is  the  secret  of  genius,  whether  genius  labors  for  the  ends  of 
14 


314  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §188. 

scientific  or  poetic  truth  ;  whether  the  end  for  which  it  labors  is 
the  truth  of  science  that  addresses  the  intellect,  or  the  truth  of 
feeling  which  controls  the  heart. 

In  the  communication  of  scientific  truth  there  can  be  no  question 
that  a  large  measure  of  imagination  is  of  essential  service.  He- 
who  would  amply  illustrate,  powerfully  defend,  or  effectively 
enforce  the  principles  and  truths  of  science,  is  greatly  aided  by  a 
brilliant  imagination.  This,  of  all  other  gifts,  is  the  best  security 
against  that  tendency  to  the  dry  and  abstract,  the  general  and  the 
remote,  to  which  the  expounder  of  science  is  exposed  by  reason 
of  his  familiarity  with  principles  which  are  strange  to  his 
pupils  and  readers,  and  which  need  to  be  continually  explained 
and  illustrated  by  fresh  and  various  examples.  The  philosophic 
writer  or  teacher  who  is  gifted  with  imagination  is  more  likely  to 
be  clear  in  statement,  ample  in  illustration,  pertinent  in  the 
application,  and  exciting  in  the  enforcement  of  the  truths  with 
which  his  science  is  conversant,  whatever  may  be  its  subject- 
matter. 

§  188.  The  practical  and  ethical  uses  of  the  ima^ina- 

The  practical 

and      ethical  tion  are  numerous  and   elevated.     These  are  suffi- 

imagination.  .  ... 

ciently  obvious  from  the  single  consideration,  that 
the  standards  by  which  we  regulate  our  aims  and  estimate  our 
achievements  must  always  be  ideal  creations.  They  are  con- 
tinually formed  and  reformed  by  the  imagination.  These  ideals, 
so  far  as  the  particulars  of  the  character  and  the  life  are  concerned, 
may  vary  both  in  their  import  and  in  the  vividness  with  which  this 
import  is  conceived.  If  they  are  consistent  with  the  conditions  of 
human  nature  and  human  life;  if  they  are  conformed  to  the  phy- 
sical and  moral  laws  of  our  nature,  and  to  the  government  and 
will  of  God,  they  are  healthful  and  ennobling.  Such  ideals  can 
scarcely  be  too  high,  or  too  ardently  and  steadfastly  adhered  to. 
But  if  they  are  false  in  their  theory  of  life  and  happiness,  if  they 
are  untrue  to  the  conditions  of  our  actual  existence,  if  they  in- 
volve the  disappointment  of  our  hopes,  and  discontent  witli  real 
life,  they  are  the  bane  of  all  enjoyment,  and  fatal  to  true  happi- 
ness. 

It  is  not  what  we  actually  attain  or  possess  that  makes  us 
happy  or  wretched,  but  what  we  think  is  essential,  or  possible,  or 
just  for  ourselves  to  attain.  The  ideal  standard  by  which  we 


§188.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   IMAGINATION.  315 

measure  and  judge  our  attainments  in  all  these  respects,  is 
a  most  important  element  of  satisfaction  or  discontent.  It  is 
of  little  consequence  what  a  man  has,  if  he  imagines  that  he 
must  have  something  more  in  order  to  be  truly  happy.  If  his  ideal 
contemplates  self-sacrifice,  suffering,  and  evil,  as  possible  condi- 
tions of  good,  he  will  be  still  more  secure  of  a  happy  life.  If  it 
reaches  forward  to  another  scene  of  existence,  and  brings  before 
him  the  blessedness  of  a  character  perfected  by  suffering  and 
made  fit  for  the  purest  and  noblest  society  conceivable,  his  happi- 
ness on  earth  may  even  be  augmented  by  disappointment,  sorrow, 
and  pain. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  these  ideals  are  factitious  or  unreason- 
able, they  become  the  source  of  constant  wretchedness.  If  a 
man,  to  be  happy,  must  be  as  rich  or  as  fashionable,  as  successful 
or  as  accomplished  as  he  dreams  of,  all  his  actual  enjoyments  pass 
for  little  or  nothing  till  his  ideal  desires  are  gratified.  These 
are  the  standards  by  which  he  measures  his  good.  If  he 
fails  to  realize  these,  he  cannot  be  satisfied. 

The  ideals  we  frame  of  life  and  happiness  must  involve  a  more 
or  less  positively  ethical  character.  We  cannot  imagine  what 
we  are  to  be  and  to  become  in  fortune  and  success,  without  pro- 
posing more  or  less  distinctly  what  we  ought  to  be  in  character 
and  to  perform  in  action.  Hence,  in  a  certain  sense,  what  a  man 
aspires  to  become,  has  already  ethically  decided  what  he  is.  His 
aims  and  standard  are  the  reflex  of  his  wishes  and  his  will,  as 
well  as  the  assurance  of  what  he  can  achieve  in  the  future. 

The  ideal  standard  of  duty  may  be  constantly  corrected  and 
improved.  From  his  own  experience  of  the  effects  of  acts  or 
habits,  or  his  observation  of  these  effects  in  others,  a  man  may 
supply  what  he  has  omitted  to  observe,  or  correct  that  in  which 
he  has  erred,  and  so  advance  to  a  higher  and  more  perfect  rule 
of  feeling,  of  manners,  and  of  life.  In  this  way  a  community 
may  rise  or  sink,  may  advance  or  go  backward.  Every  man  may 
also  advance  the  ideal  of  others  by  his  good  life,  by  the  realization 
in  himself  of  what  is  worthy,  and  his  more  perfect  manifestation 
of  it  in  appropriate  and  beautiful  acts.  The  contemplation 
of  fictitious  characters,  elevated  and  ennobled  by  ideal  beauty, 
has  served  to  quicken  and  enforce  the  ethical  ideal  of  thousands 
of  susceptible  minds.  The  poet,  the  novelist,  and  the  dramatist, 


316  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §189. 

may  quicken  the  fervor,  and  instruct  the  minds,  may  elevate  the 
tastes,  and  reform  the  lives  of  all  their  readers. 

§  189.  The  relation  of  the  imagination  to  religious 

Relation  of  the  .     .  .  ,  .  rpi         i  •  5 

imagination  to  faith  is  interesting  and  important.  Ihe  objects  of  our 
faith,  by  their  very  definition,  have  never  been 
subjected  to  direct  or  intuitive  knowledge.  And  yet  the  imagi- 
nation pictures  these  objects  as  real  and  most  important.  What 
are  the  materials  out  of  which  it  creates  them  ?  Whence  the 
suggestions  which  it  idealizes  into  more  refined  and  spiritual 
essences  ?  By  what  authority  does  it  invest  these  creations  with 
verisimilitude  and  impose  them  upon  the  assent  of  the  intellect, 
as  representing  the  most  real  and  important  of  all  truths  ?  What 
analogies  are  there  between  the  finite  and  the  infinite  which 
authorize  the  imagination  to  use  the  one  to  symbolize  the  other, 
and  which  justify  its  faith  in  its  own  symbolic  creations? 

Of  the  Divine  Being  as  Infinite,  we  have  no  direct  experi- 
ence. All  our  direct  apprehensions  of  spiritual  attributes  and 
relations  are  of  the  limited  only.  It  is  by  the  limited  that  we 
reach  the  unlimited  even  in  thought. 

Conceding  that  we  can  think  the  infinite,  can  we  also  image  it? 
We  cannot.  The  sphere  of  the  imagination  is  only  the  finite. 
All  the  pictures  which  it  can  construct  are  of  limited  objects.  It 
is  by  means  of  such  pictures  only  that  it  can  image  its  concepts 
of  the  infinite,  if  it  attempts  to  image  these  at  all.  That  it  can 
adequately  picture  them,  no  man  believes.  What  is  pictured  by 
the  image,  is  some  limited  example  of  some  real  being  which  sug- 
gests or  exemplifies  the  thought-relations  required. 

These  thought-relations  are  :  existence,  power,  knowledge,  ori- 
gination, foresight; — all  which, we  say  and  believe, are  both  finite 
and  infinite.  But  when  we  seek  to  image  these  as  infinite,  we 
select  some  finite  examples  that  illustrate  these  attributes ;  we 
choose  an  image  to  give  life  and  reality  to  the  analogon  of  that 
which  we  believe  to  be  unlimited  in  respect  to  its  sphere  and 
energy. 

But  these  utmost  efforts  of  the  imaginative  power  to  reach  the 
infinite  and  the  absolute,  are  always  attended  by  the  belief  that 
they  fall  short  of  the  reality;  that  no  enumeration  of  finite  objects, 
however  interesting  in  themselves,  or  significant  they  may  be. 
are  at  all  adequate  to  illustrate  the  divine ;  that  no  continuation 


§  189.  REPRESENTATION. — THE   IMAGINATION.  317 

of  space  or  of  time  can  express  the  divine  eternity ;  that  no 
quanta  of  dependent  beings  can  fitly  represent  the  Being  who  is 
self-existent.  To  have  the  materials  that  shall  enable  a  man  fitly 
to  image  the  infinite,  one  must  himself  be  infinite.  There  are, 
indeed,  analogies  between  the  created  and  the  creating  spirit ;  else 
the  one  could  not  know  the  other  in  any  sense  or  to  any  degree. 
But  these  analogies  are  too  few  and  too  inadequate  to  enable  or 
authorize  man  to  penetrate  into  the  secret  things  which  belong  to 
God,  or  to  make  conceivable  the  divine  by  any  images  which 
man  applies  so  freely  and  so  rationally  to  limited  things.  The 
imagination  is  not  easily  content  to  use  the  analogies  which  are 
placed  at  its  command,  and  to  refrain  from  using  those  which  it 
may  not  lawfully  employ.  It  would  fain  go  further  than  it  can 
or  ought.  To  do  this,  has  been  its  constant  temptation.  To  re- 
fuse to  go  as  far  as  it  may  and  ought,  is  weak  and  unphilosophi- 
cal ;  but  to  attempt  to  go  further,  is  always  irrational,  and,  it  may 
be,  impious. 

In  respect,  also,  to  the  capacities  and  experiences  of  the  spirit- 
state, — when  separate  from  a  human  body  or  any  material 
organization — the  imagination  is  limited  in  the  materials  of  its 
working  and  the  products  which  it  creates.  We  know  the  soul 
only  in  its  connection  with  the  body.  To  image  any  of  its  acts 
or  states  without  a  constantly  present  background  of  bodily  sensa- 
tions, is  to  imagine  a  mode  of  existence  that  seems  to  us  imper- 
fect and  unnatural.  We  cannot  imagine  the  soul  without  the 
body  by  which  to  know  and  act,  and  without  material  objects  to 
act  upon.  If  we  attempt  this,  we  bring  to  our  aid  some  attenuated 
matter  for  the  soul's  habitation  and  instrument,  and  we  surround 
it  with  a  world  of  objects  that  wear  the  forms  of  material  things. 
But  here  the  question  continually  presents  itself,  How  far  can  we 
image  that  world  by  this,  and  the  soul's  experiences  in  that 
world,  by  its  experiences  in  this?  Can  we  properly  imagine 
either?  May  we  apply  the  pictures  drawn  from  this  life  to  illus- 
trate or  make  conceivable  the  scenes  and  events  of  another  state  ? 
We  not  only  can,  but  we  must;  yet  ever  with  the  caution,  that 
the  images  which  we  use  be  not  allowed  to  suggest  more  than 
the  data  authorize. 

It  should  not  surprise  us  to  find  that  the  imagination,  when  it 
rises  into  faith  in  the  objects  of  the  unseen  world,  invariably  uses 


318  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  189. 

pictures  that  are  borrowed  from  the  world  of  matter,  and  phrases 
all  its  language  from  materials  furnished  by  this  imagery.  It 
cannot  do  otherwise.  However  lofty  its  conceptions  may  be, 
however  soaring  its  aspirations,  undoubted  its  beliefs,  or  ardent 
its  hopes,  all  these  must  be  pictured  and  expressed  in  the  images 
taken  from  that  world  of  matter  which  is  adapted  to  a  soul  that 
knows  and  acts  through  a  material  organism.  If  there  be  a 
revelation  that  is  conveyed  by  human  language  or  addressed  to 
the  human  soul,  it  must  in  this  respect  be  accommodated  to  the 
capacities  of  the  soul  that  is  to  understand  and  accept  it.  The 
fact  that  a  revelation  must  be  conveyed  by  such  a  medium,  does 
not  disprove  that  it  is  possible,  or  at  all  detract  from  its  im- 
portance or  authority.  It  cannot  be  argued  against  its  divine 
origination  or  supernatural  confirmation,  that  it  conforms  itself 
in  this  respect  to  the  nature  of  the  being  to  whom  it  is  given. 

If,  however,  we  regard  the  necessary  limits  of  imagination 
and  faith,  we  shall  not  expect  that  either  will  do  more  for  us 
than  lies  in  the  capacities  of  either.  We  shall  not  confound  the 
images  of  analogy  with  the  intuitions  of  direct  knowledge.  We 
shall  not  mistake  the  accessories  of  illustrative  imagery  for  the 
realities  of  the  concepts  or  truths  which  this  imagery  sets  forth. 
We  shall  not  revel  in  sense-pictures  of  the  fancy,  as  though  the 
sensuous  in  them  were  literal  truth.  We  shall  not  be  imposed 
upon  by  pretended  seers,  because,  forsooth,  their  pictures  of  the 
unseen  are  so  minute,  so  copious,  and  so  beautiful,  or  so  confi- 
dently set  forth  ;  overlooking  the  circumstance  that  these  visions 
may  be  merely  the  residua  of  a  too  luxuriant  fancy,  or  the 
creations  of  an  excited  and  perhaps  an  insane  imagination.  The 
recognition  of  the  human  limitations  in  the  divine,  will  teach  us 
to  interpret  the  divine  aright,  while  it  may  save  us  from  accept- 
ing as  divine  that  which  is  only  limited  and  human. 


§  190.     THOUGHT-KNOWLEDGE  DEFINED  AND  EXPLAINED.         319 

PART  THIRD. 

THINKING   AND   THOUGHT-KNOWLEDGE. 

CHAPTER  L 

THOUGHT-KNOWLEDGE  DEFINED  AND  EXPLAINED. 

Thinking  and  §  190<  The  tnird  kind  of  knowledge  of  which  the 
fee«defti*ed  inte^ect  'ls  capable,  is  thinking,  or  thought.  The 
term  thought,  when  used  in  this  special  or  technical 
sense,  is  applied  to  a  great  variety  of  processes,  which  are 
familiarly  known  as  abstraction,  generalization,  naming,  judging, 
reasoning,  arranging,  explaining,  and  accounting  for.  These 
processes  are  often  grouped  together,  and  called  the  logical,  or 
rational  processes. 

The  importance  and  intimate  relationship  of  these  processes  is 
seen  by  their  place  with  respect  to  the  higher  knowledge  and  attain- 
ments of  man.  It  is  by  thought  only  that  we  can  form  those  concep- 
tions of  number  and  magnitude  which  are  the  postulates  and  the 
materials  of  mathematical  science.  By  thinking,  we  both  en- 
large and  rise  above  the  limited  and  transient  information  which 
is  gained  by  single  acts  of  consciousness  and  sense-perception,  as 
we  lay  hold  of  that  in  both  which  is  universal  and  permanent. 
By  thought,  we  know  effects  by  their  causes,  and  causes  through 
their  effects :  we  believe  in  powers,  whose  actings  only  we  can 
directly  discern,  and  infer  powers  in  objects  which  we  have  never 
tested  nor  observed  :  we  explain  what  has  happened  by  referring 
it  to  laws  of  necessity  or  reason,  and  we  predict  what  will  hap- 
pen by  rightly  interpreting  what  has  occurred.  By  thinking,  we 
rise  to  the  unseen  from  that  which  is  seen,  to  the  laws  of  nature 
from  the  facts  of  nature,  to  the  laws  of  spirit  from  the  phe- 
nomena of  spirit,  and  to  God  from  the  universe  of  matter  and 
of  spirit,  whose  powers  reveal  His  energy,  and  whose  ends  and 
adaptations  manifest  His  thoughts  and  character. 

These  processes  give  us  the  most  important  part  of  our  know- 
ledge, and  qualify  us  for  our  noblest  functions.  Thought  makes 
us  capable  of  language,  by  which  we  communicate  what  we 


320  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  190. 

know  and  feel  for  the  good  of  others,  or  record  it  for  another 
generation ;  of  science,  as  distinguished  from  and  elevated  above 
the  observation  and  remembrance  of  single  and  isolated  facts ; 
of  forecast,  as  we  learn  wisdom  by  experience ;  of  duty,  as  we 
exalt  ourselves  into  judges  and  lawgivers  over  our  inward  desires 
And  intentions  ;  of  law,  as  we  discern  its  importance  and  bow  to 
its  authority  ;  and  of  religion,  as  we  believe  in  and  worship  the 
Unseen,  whose  existence  and  character  we  interpret  by  His  works 
and  learn  from  His  Word. 

But  what  it  is  to  think,  and  how  thinking  should  be  defined, 
may  be  more  easily  understood  by  a  concrete  example.  We 
take  a  familiar  object,  as  an  apple,  and  proceed  to  think  it,  in 
the  various  processes  already  named. 

First  of  all,  we  know  it  as  a  being  or  a  something,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  nothing ;  next,  we  think  or  know  this  being  as 
possessed  of  and  distinguished  by  attributes  or  properties  which 
we  can  separate  in  thought  from  the  being  to  which  they  belong. 
We  go  further  :  we  observe  in  other  objects — apples — attributes 
like  those  which  we  discern  in  this;  we  see  the  objects  to  be 
similar  in  color,  form,  taste,  etc.  In  this  way  we  form  the 
mental  product  called  a  general  notion  or  concept  of  the  apple, 
or  of  apples  in  general  as  we  say,  which  we  can  analyze  and 
define.  To  abstract  and  to  analyze,  is  to  think.  Next,  we  re- 
store, or  think  back,  these  general  concepts  to  the  individual 
apples,  and  in  so  doing,  we  divide  them  into  higher  or  lower, 
wider,  or  narrower  classes.  Classification  is  involved  in  thinking. 
As  we  proceed,  we  mark  and  fix  what  we  have  done  by  lan- 
guage. We  give  names  to  each  of  these  attributes,  to  the  con- 
cepts and  things  formed  and  denoted  by  several  attributes 
united,  and  to  the  classes  and  sub-classes  into  which  they  are 
separated.  Thinking  is  necessary  to  language.  Next,  the  apple 
holds  relations  to  space  and  time.  It  is  both  extended  and  endur- 
ing. The  perception  of  the  apple  conditionates  or  involves  the 
knowledge  of  both  space  and  time.  By  thought  and  imagina- 
tion we  are  enabled  to  separate  the  object  perceived  from  both 
time  and  space,  and  to  construct  in  space  the  various  geometri- 
cal figures,  as  well  as  to  conceive  and  define  them  by  their  neces- 
sary attributes  or  properties.  Moreover,  all  sorts  of  entities, 
whether  things  existing,  or  thought-things,  whether  attributes  or 


§  190.    THOUGHT-KNOWLEDGE  DEFINED  AND  EXPLAINED.         321 

beings,  can,  by  the  common  relations  to  time  in  the  mind  that 
thinks  them,  be  thought  in  the  relations  of  number.  Again,  the 
object — the  apple — is  believed  to  be  produced  from  a  tree, 
beginning  as  the  germ  in  the  blossom,  and  gradually  expanding 
into  the  ripened  fruit.  It  is  known  also  to  be  dependent  upon 
the  agencies  of  heat  and  moisture  acting  together  with  the  living 
tree.  Thought,  connects  these  as  cause  and  effect,  and  finds  in 
the  phenomena  thus  connected,  the  relations  of  the  powers  and 
laws  of  their  causative  agents.  We  proceed  to  a  higher  act  of 
thought  knowledge.  By  observing  the  powers  and  conditions  in 
any  class  of  apples,  their  habit  of  growth,  the  soil,  situation  and 
temperature  favorable  to  their  successful  cultivation,  we  infer 
that  the  same  are  required  in  all  cases  for  this  kind  of  fruit,  and 
confirm  the  suggestion  by  experiment.  But  we  do  not  rest  with 
the  induction  of  powers  and  laws.  We  observe  that  the  apple 
is  useful  and  pleasant  as  food.  We  notice  that  it  is  the  product 
of  cool  climates,  and  can,  with  proper  care,  be  preserved  through 
the  winter.  We  do  not  merely  observe  and  record  these  as  facts, 
but  we  connect  them  by  the  relation  of  adaptation,  or  fitness  to 
the  wants  of  man. 

The  nature  and  processes  of  thought  might  be  illustrated  by 
an  example  selected  from  the  world  of  spirit.  By  consciousness, 
we  know  only  individual  states  of  perception  or  feeling.  But  we 
detain  or  repeat  one  and  another ;  we  observe  their  likeness  or 
unlikeness ;  we  form  concepts ;  we  group  them  in  classes  which 
divide  the  individuals  to  which  they  belong ;  we  fix  and  record 
the  products  of  our  acts  by  a  name ;  we  find  common  causes, 
powers,  and  laws  for  similar  phenomena ;  we  discern  the  adapta- 
tions of  spiritual  objects  to  one  another  and  to  the  world  of 
matter,  and  thus  bind  together  the  world  of  matter  and  spirit,  in 
the  unity  and  harmony  of  one  comprehensive  plan  ;  the  thinking 
of  man  interpreting  in  these  ways  the  thoughts  of  God. 

From  this  particular  example  of  thought  we  derive  the  fol- 
lowing definitions :  To  know  by  thinking,  is  to  unite  individual 
objects  by  means  of  generalization,  classification,  rational  ex- 
planatjon,  and  orderly  arrangement, —  Thought-knowledge  is  that 
knowledge  which  is  gained  by  the  formation  and  application  of 
general  conceptions. 

Thinking  is  a  species  of  knowledge ;  but  knowledge  has  been 

14* 


322  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §191. 

defined  as  the  apprehension  of  objects  in  their  relations.  Think- 
ing, is  the  apprehension  of  objects  as  generalized  and  their  implied 
relations. 

Some  persons  may  question  the  propriety  of  designating  these 
several  processes  by  the  terms  thinking  and  thought,  for  the  reason 
that  these  words  sometimes  signify  to  imagine,  or  believe  on  in- 
sufficient evidence. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  should  be  remembered  that  thinking  and 
thought,  in  the  best  English  usage,  denote,  in  a  general  sense, 
the  higher  as  distinguished  from  the  lower  operations  of  the 
intellect.  There  are  no  single  words  so  appropriate  as  these, 
which  can  be  set  apart  to  the  technical  service  and  designation 
of  the  operations  of  the  rational  faculty ;  no  other  terms  for  these 
operations  are  in  actual  use  whose  co'mmOn  signification  is  at  once 
so  comprehensive  and  so  definite  as  are  these. 

§  191.  If  it  be  difficult  to  find  an  appropriate  term 
forAKnpower  to  stand  for  a11  these  nigner  processes,  it  is  almost  as 
etc  thinkins'  difficult  to  find  or  select  an  appellation  for  the  power 
which  qualifies  us  to  perform  them.  The  intelligence 
and  the  intellect  have  been  thus  appropriated,  but  they  are  also 
used  for  the  capacity  of  the  soul  for  every  species  of  knowledge, 
the  lower  as  well  as  the  higher ;  for  the  power  to  know  by  sense 
and  imagination,  as  well  as  the  power  to  know  by  general  con- 
ceptions. The  understanding  is  sometimes  employed  in  this  very 
general  sense,  and  sometimes  limited  to  a  single  and  special  func- 
tion, as  by  Coleridge  and  others,  after  Kant.  The  judgment  is 
used,  likewise,  in  a  wider  and  a  narrower  sense.  The  reason 
seems  better  fitted  than  almost  any  other  term,  and  yet  the  rea- 
son is  used  for  the  very  highest  of  the  rational  functions,  or  else 
in  a  very  indefinite  sense  for  all  that  distinguishes  man  from  the 
brutes.  It  remains  for  us  to  choose  between  the  rational  faculty 
and  the  power  of  thought,  or  briefly,  thought.  For  brevity  and 
precision  we  prefer  thought.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  observe 
that,  like  perception  and  representation,  and  many  subordinate 
terms,  thought  is  used  at  one  time  for  the  power,  at  another  for 
the  act  of  thinking,  and  at  another  for  its  products.  Thus  w"e 
say  indifferently,  "  Man  is  endowed  with  thought  as  well  as  with 
sense :"  "  Sits  fixed  in  thought  the  mighty  Stagy  rite:"  "  A  penny 
for  your  thoughts  f" 


§  191.    THOUGHT-KNOWLEDGE  DEFINED  AND  EXPLAINED.         323 

The  power  of  thought  may  be  considered  in  two  aspects :  as  a 
capacity  for  certain  processes  or  functions;  and  for  eliminating  and 
generalizing  certain  fundamental  conceptions  or  relations.  In  the 
one  of  these  aspects  it  performs  the  several  acts  which  we  have 
enumerated,  of  generalizing,  judging,  reasoning,  etc.,  the  most 
of  which  are  usually  called  logical  processes,  because  they  are 
more  or  less  intimately  related  to  deduction  or  reasoning.  In 
r  the  other,  it  is  viewed  as  the  discoverer  of  certain  native  concep- 
tions or  intuitions,  and  the  propounder  of  certain  first  truths,  or 
first  principles ;  which  are  also  called  necessary  and  universal 
propositions,  axioms  of  reason,  or,  metaphysical  conceptions  and 
metaphysical  truths. 

Hamilton  refers  these  two  processes  to  two  faculties,  the  elabo- 
rative  and  the  regulative,  the  one  of  which  elaborates  or  works 
over  the  materials  furnished  by  the  lower  powers,  according  to 
the  conceptions  or  rules  which  the  other  furnishes  or  prescribes. 
In  this  he  follows  Kant  very  closely,  who  calls  the  logical 
faculty,  the  understanding ,  and  the  power  which  controls  its 
beliefs  by  ideas,  the  reason. 

It  is  more  satisfactory  to  consider  the  two  in  conformity  with 
the  analogy  which  we  discern  in  the  other  powers  of  the  soul ; 
the  one  as  the  capacity  for  certain  definite  acts  or  processes  of 
knowing,  which  we  consciously  exercise  and  employ  ;  and  the 
other  as  the  unconscious  source  of  these  conceptions,  according 
to  which  the  material  of  knowledge  must  arrange  itself  by  the 
very  constitution  of  the  thinking  power. 

The  thinking  power,  viewed  as  the  capacity  for  certain  pro- 
cesses, thinks  in  various  methods,  and  matures  certain  products, 
the  two  being  often  denoted  by  the  same  word.  These  several 
products  are  called  the  forms  of  thought,  or  thought-formations. 
These  forms  are  the  concept,  the  judgment,  \\Q  argument  or 
syllogism,  the  induction,  and  the  system. 

As  the  discerner  or  the  discoverer  by  intuition  of  certain  neces- 
sary conceptions  or  relations,  the  thinking  power  is  said  to  know 
or  assume  certain  forms  of  being,  according  to  which  it  performs  its 
operations,  and  constructs  its  products  or  forms  of  thought.  These 
are  called  indifferently,  forms  of  being  and  forms  of  knowledge, 
for  the  reason  that  the  mind  can  only  know  what  is  or  exists, 
and  according  to  the  relations  in  which  it  exists.  Some  of  these 


324  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §192, 

forms  of  being  or  forms  of  knowledge  are  time  and  space,  sub- 
stance and  attribute,  cause  and  effect,  means  and  end. 

§  192.  The  power  of  thought,  as  a  capacity  for 

Relation    of  .  r    .  * 

thought  to  the  certain  psychological  processes,  is  dependent  for  its 

lower  powers.  .111 

exercise  and  development  on  the  lower  powers  of  the 
intellect.  These  powers  furnish  the  materials  for  it  to  work  with 
and  upon.  We  must  first  apprehend  individual  objects  by  means 
of  Sense  and  consciousness,  before  we  can  think  these  objects. 
We  can  classify,  explain,  and  methodize  only  individual  things, 
and  these  must  first  be  known  by  sense  and  consciousness. 

These  lower  powers  are  not  only  necessary  to  furnish  the  objects 
for  thought  to  work  upon,  but  they  are  developed  earlier  than 
the  higher  powers.  The  infant  must  go  through  a  training 
of  the  eye  and  the  ear  for  months,  before  it  begins  to  name  and 
classify  with  effect.  It  is  the  conscious  subject  of  a  multitude 
of  mental  states,  before  it  gathers  the  most  obvious  under  a 
general  conception.  The  discipline  of  attention  must  be  for  a 
long  time  enforced,  before  the  developed  mind  can  learn  to  apply 
the  commonest  concepts  or  to  affix  the  simplest  names.  The 
conceptions  of  cause  and  effect,  and  of  means  and  end,  are  not 
developed  till  the  intellect  has  become  still  more  mature. 

To  the  development  of  thought,  the  representative  faculty  is 
also  largely  subservient.  The  individual  object  must  not  only  bo 
apprehended  in  order  to  be  thought  of,  but  it  must  be  recalled 
again  and  again.  To  thought,  the  discernment  of  similarity  is 
required  ;  and  in  order  to  this,  the  past  must  be  frequently  con- 
fronted with  the  present,  and  the  present  must  be  compared  with 
the  past.  Objects  striking  for  their  likeness  or  their  difference, 
must  be  recalled  by  the  memory  and  revived  to  the  imagination, 
in  order  that  like  objects  and  like  phenomena  may  be  grouped 
and  arranged  in  the  rudest  classification.  If  the  classification  is 
to  be  perfected  to  anything  like  scientific  exactness,  the  memory 
and  imagination  are  to  be  tasked  still  further  in  order  that  one's 
thought-products  may  be  just  to  the  reality  of  things. 

But  while  the  thought-power,  in  its  various  operations,  is  thus 
shown  to  be  developed  later  than  the  several  forms  of  direct 
cognition,  it  should  not  be  supposed  that  it  springs  into  perfect 
and  mature  energy  by  a  single  bound,  or  that  the  acts  of  in- 
fant perception  are  not  affected  by  its  rudimental  activity.  The 


§  193.    THOUGHT-KNOWLEDGE  DEFINED  AND  EXPLAINED.         325 

human  intellect  is  a  unit,  and  the  action  of  one  power  is  tinged 
or  modified  by  the  feeble  energy  of  all  the  others.  The  sense- 
perceptions  of  the  infant  may  seem  to  be  more  feeble  and  less 
mature  than  are  those  of  the  young  of  the  brute.  The  highei 
powers  may  meanwhile  seem  to  lie  torpid  long  before  they  are 
called  into  distinct  activity.  But  before  they  are  revealed  to  the 
conscious  subject  of  them,  or  are  expressed  in  the  simplest  forms 
of  language,  they  give  direction  and  character  to  the  perceptions 
of  sense.  They  impart  to  the  human  eye  a  cast  of  dawning 
intelligence  which  distinguishes  it  from  the  keener  eye  of  the  dog 
or  the  eagle. 

§  193.  Thinking,  again,  may  be  distinguished  as 

J  .  Concrete  and 

concrete  and  abstract.  In  concrete  thinking,  we  know  abstract  thmk- 
of  thought-conceptions  and  relations  only  in  their 
application  to  individual  or  concrete  objects.  We  should  say 
more  exactly,  we  know  individual  objects  under  or  by  means  of 
the  relations  which  thought  furnishes.  In  abstract  thinking  we 
separate  these  conceptions  and  relations  from  any  and  all  indi- 
vidual objects.  We  consider  them  apart  by  abstraction,  and 
sometimes  treat  them  as  though  these  conceptions  and  relations 
could  have  an  independent  existence.  In  concrete  thinking,  we 
proceed  as  we  have  described  in  §  189. 

In  abstract  thinking,  we  separate  ot  abstract  from  every  indi- 
vidual object  the  generalized  conceptions  which  we  produce  by 
thinking,  as  also  those  by  means  of  which  we  think :  as  the  con- 
cept, the  judgment,  the  argument,  the  inference  and  the  system, 
on  the  one  hand ;  and  substance  and  attribute,  cause  and  effect, 
means  and  end,  on  the  other.  We  even  abstract  and  generalize 
our  very  acts  or  processes  of  thinking,  and  view  them  apart  from 
the  individual  examples  or  cases  in  which  they  actually  occur.  We 
ask,  What  is  it  to  conceive,  to  generalize,  to  judge,  to  reason,  to 
infer — nay,  what  is  it  itself  to  think  ?  We  discuss  the  nature 
and  origin  of  these  conceptions,  and  their  relations  to  one  another, 
to  the  objects  to  which  they  are  applied,  and  indeed  to  all  our 
knowledge. 

Concrete  thinking  is  performed  by  every  human  being  whose 
powers  are  fully  developed. '  All  men  freely  apply  its  concep- 
tions and  relations.  By  means  of  them  they  know  sensible  and 
spiritual  objects,  so  far  as  they  know  these  at  all.  A  stone  or  an 


326  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  194. 

apple,  a  horse  or  a  dog,  a  house  or  a  church,  a  spirit  or  a  person, 
each  and  all  are  known  as  beings,  and  are  distinguished  and  de- 
fined by  certain  attributes  or  properties.  One  of  these  acts  upon 
another,  as  a  cause  producing  an  effect,  etc.  In  myriad  examples, 
objects  are  familiarly  known  by  us  as  substances  and  attributes, 
as  causes  and  effects,  as  means  and  ends.  In  the  concrete  form, 
all  these  conceptions  are  present  in  the  language,  and  familiar 
to  the  minds  of  the  most  uninstructed  men. 

But  when  these  conceptions  are  abstracted,  and  viewed  apart 
from  individual  beings,  they  are  not  made  familiar  to  the  inind 
without  a  special  discipline.  It  is  only  a  few  men  who  possess 
the  tastes  or  the  training  which  qualify  them  readily  to  deal  with 
or  rightly  to  understand  thought-conceptions  when  abstracted 
from  individual  things.  Skill  in  using,  and  discrimination  in 
understanding  them,  can  only  be  acquired  by  concentrated  and 
patient  efforts. 

§  194.  Thinking  is  aided  by  language,  and,  to  a 

Relations  of  J.  '     . 

thought  tj        great  extent,  is  dependent  upon  it  as  its  most  efficient 
instrument  and  auxiliary.     But  thinking  is  not  con- 
stituted by,  but,  on  the  contrary,  itself  originates  and  gives  form 
and  law  to  language. 

The  connection  between  thought  and  language  is  so  intimate, 
that  we  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  to  it  again  and  again.  One  or 
two  general  remarks  in  respect  to  it,  seem  here  to  be  in  place.  The 
reason  why  thought  requires  such  an  instrument  and  assistant  as 
language,  is,  that  the  objects  of  thinking  are  generalized  objects, 
and  to  such  objects  there  are  and  there  can  be  no  realities 
actually  existing.  The  results  or  products  of  our  thinking  are 
not  manifested  by  any  changes  which  are  actually  affected  in 
material  or  spiritual  objects.  It  is  only  by  language — the 
sound  to  the  ear,  and  its  symbol  for  the  eye — that  the  products 
of  thought  activity  can  be  fixed  so  as  to  be  the  objects  of  recall  and 
future  use.  Hence  words  spring  into  being  as  fast  as  definite 
conceptions  are  formed.  Hence  it  is  as  natural  for  man  to  speak 
as  it  is  to  think,  and  man  "  speaks  because  he  thinks."  The 
name  fixes,  preserves,  and  exhibits  the  transient  concept  as  in  a 
crystal  shrine,  both  hard  and  clear.  The  proposition  embodies 
the  judgment  for  the  use  of  the  man  who  first  thinks  it,  and 
who  utters  it  to  stimulate  the  thinking  of  others.  In  applying 


§  195.  FORMATION  OF  THE  CONCEPT  OR  NOTION.  32? 

names,  we  must  enter  somewhat  into  the  nature  and  properties 
of  the  objects  for  which  they  stand.  In  defining  terms,  we  must 
be  guided  to  their  meaning  by  observing  the  things  to  which 
they  are  applied.  In  accepting  or  rejecting  propositions,  we 
must  think  of  the  relations  of  the  objects  which  they  concern. 

It  follows,  also,  that  the  study  of  words  must  be  a  study  and 
discipline  of  thought.  To  master  a  language  that  is  rich  in  its 
vocabulary,  requires  that  we  contemplate  the  nicer  shades  of 
thought  which  are  expressed  by  the  endless  variety  of  the  con- 
ceptions that  are  embodied  in  its  words.  If  it  is  complicated 
in  its  structure,  we  must  discriminate  the  delicate  relations 
which  this  syntax  expresses  or  suggests.  No  language  can  be 
dead  to  the  intelligent  student.  Its  delicate  tissue  reflects  the 
varying  shades  of  thought,  feeling,  and  opinion  that  run  through 
every  part  of  the  fabric,  like  threads  of  silk  and  gold. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  words  in  no  sense  constitute  thought, 
as  some  hastily  infer.  Language  is  simply  thought  expressed, 
though  the  thought  is  made  permanent  by  being  expressed.  It 
is  formed  by  the  thinking  power,  because  this  requires  for  de- 
velopment and  perfection  a  sensible  expression  of  its  inner  pro- 
cesses, and  seeks  a  permanent  embodiment  and  record  of  their 
results. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   FORMATION   OF   THE   CONCEPT   OR   NOTION. 

§  195.  Thinking  has  been  already  defined  as  that  j^ 
series   of   processes   by   which   we   form  and   applv  formins  the 

.  "J-    J     concept. 

general  notions  or  concepts.     It  is   obvious  that  the 
first  act  in  this  series  of  processes  is  to  form  or  de- 
velop these  products.     We  begin  with  the  concepts  of  material 
objects,  such  as  a  stone,  an  apple,  a  horse ;  and  observe  that  such 
objects   must    be   perceived,  in   part,  at   least,   before   we   form 
general  notions  of  them.     We  do  not  insist  that  the  process  of 
perception   should   be   complete  before  the  act  of  generalizing 
begins.     It  is  necessary,  however,  that  a  percept  should  go  befora 


S28  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  195. 

the  concept  in  the  order  of  time,  as  it  is  the  foundation  for  it  in 
the  relation  of  logical  subordination.  A  general  notion  requires 
individual  objects  to  which  it  can  be  applied ;  and  individual 
objects  in  the  material  world  can  only  be  known  by  perception. 
The  mind  begins  to  form  concepts  as  soon  as  it  notices  that 
several  perceived  objects  are  different  as  individuals,  and  yet  are 
in  any  one  respect  alike.  Before  generalization,  they  may  be 
known  confusedly  or  known  vaguely.  As  soon,  however,  as 
they  are  distinguished  as  not  the  same,  and  yet  as  united  by  a 
common  likeness,  the  process  of  generalization  has  begun.  This 
process  is  possible  even  with  single  percepts.  If  ten  patches  of 
red  color,  of  the  same  form,  dimensions,  and  intensity,  were  pre- 
sented to  the  eye,  the  mind  might  gather,  or  conceive,  or  grasp 
them  together,  by  their  common  redness,  and  form  a  general 
notion  of  them ;  thus  uniting  them  as  one  by  the  single  simi- 
larity of  color.  If  these  ten  red  discs  of  color,  by  the  use  of  the 
remaining  senses,  are  afterwards  known  to  be  ten  red  apples,  i.  e. 
if  other  points  of  likeness  are  perceived,  the  generalization  is 
more  complex  in  its  materials,  but  the  process  is  the  same. 

The  process  involves  acts  of  analysis,  of  comparison,  and  of 
generalization.  The  mind  must  notice  that  which  is  common, 
and  distinguish  it  from  that  which  is  diverse.  This  act  is  an 
act  of  comparison.  Its  appropriate  object  is  likeness.  It  dis- 
cerns a  quality  as  similar.  It  takes  this  similar  to  be  the  same, 
and,  so  regarding  it,  finds  it  in  every  one  of  the  individual 
objects.  This  similar  something,  conceived  as  common  to  many 
objects  distinguished  as  individuals,  is  a  general  conception, 
notion  or  concept. 

The  mental  acts  which  we  have  described,  are  familiarly 
known  as  follows:  The  act  of  analytic  attention  by  which  the 
similar  element  in  each  one  of  any  number  of  objects  or  pheno- 
mena is  separately  observed  or  noticed,  is  usually  called  ab- 
straction, because  the  mind  draws  it  away  from  the  other  parts 
or  relations.  Kant  and  Hamilton  say  that  abstraction  refers  to 
that  from  which  the  mind  withdraws  itself,  while  it  prescinds  the 
element  to  which  it  attends.  Thus,  in  the  example  cited,  the 
mind  prescinds  the  redness,  and  abstracts  its  attention  from  all 
the  remaining  attributes. 

The  next  step  is,  to  perceive  by  comparison  that  the  several 


§  196.  FORMATION  OF  THE  CONCEPT  OR  NOTION.  329 

objects  to  which  we  thus  separately  attend,  are  alike.  The  next 
step  is,  to  consider  these  several  similars  as  the  same,  the  one 
something  which  is  common  to  all  the  individuals  perceived. 
This  is  to  generalize — to  make  general — more  properly,  mentally 
to  think  or  affirm  a  common  something  of  all  these  individuals. 
The  similar  re$,  or  round,  or  sweet,  or  bitter,  is  made  one,  and,  as 
one,  is  regarded  as  common  to  each  of  the  different  individuals. 
Which  of  these  acts  is  first  performed,  is  immaterial — whether  the 
mind  seems  to  generalize  before  it  abstracts,  or  the  reverse ;  or 
whether  it  analyzes,  compares,  and  generalizes  all  in  one.  It  is 
all  the  same  as  to  both  process  and  product,  whether  we  separate 
the  redness  from  the  first  apple  which  we  perceive,  before  we 
apply  it  to  the  many,  or  are  stimulated  by  observing  many  red 
apples  to  notice  and  abstract  that  which  is  alike  and  common, 
or  whether  the  points  of  difference  excite  us  to  generalize  the 
one  or  more  elements  in  which  the  objects  are  alike. 

Again,  when  this  common  something  has  thus  been  generalized 
from  like  objects,  it  can  be  applied  to — i.  e.,  affirmed  or  predicated 
of — any  and  every  other  object  to  which  it  is  appropriate.  Thus, 
spherical,  after  being  thought  of  a  single  class,  as  of  apples  or 
balls,  may  be  thought  of  all  objects  that  are  round — as  of  the 
vast  spheres  which  are  hung  in  the  heavens,  or  of  globules  so 
minute  n  to  be  indiscernible  by  the  naked  eye. 

It  has  been  already  observed,  that  these  processes  develop  and 
presuppose  the  distinction  of  substance  and  attribute — i.  e.,  of  being 
and  distinguishing  relations.  The  individual  apples  of  which 
we  tMnk  the  redness  are  beings,  the  redness  is  their  common 
attribute.  What  is  the  nature  of,  and  what  the  authority 
by  which  AVO  make  this  distinction,  we  do  not  propose  here  to 
inquire.  For  our  present  purposes,  it  is  sufficient  that  we  call 
attention  to  the  fact  that  it  is  fundamental  to  the  process  of 
forming  the  notion,  and  that  it  must  be  assumed  as  real,  and  be 
firmly  believed  by  the  mind.  (Cf.  §  323.) 

§  196.  The  product  of  the  processes  considered,  is 

The  product,  its 

called  a  concept  or  notion.     We  emplov  these  terms  nature  and  ap- 

.  111  pellation. 

because  they  may  be  made  precise  in  their  import 
and  technical  in  their  use.     Conception  is  sometimes  used  ;  but 
conception  is,  in  our  English  philosophy,  used  indiscriminately 
for   any  and   every  object  of  the  mind's  cognition,   or  else  in 


530  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  196, 

arbitrarily  limited,  as  by  Dugald  Stewart,  to  the  individual 
object  of  representation,  and  thus  made  equivalent  to  image. 
Abstract  general  conception  (or  even  general  conception)  is  suffi- 
ciently precise  in  its  import,  but  is  too  cumbrous  for  common  use. 
Concept  and  notion  have  each,  in  their  etymology,  a  special  signi- 
fication appropriate  to  one  aspect  or  feature  of  the  product  to 
which  both  are  applied.  Concept  signifies  something  grasped  or 
held  together,  and  refers  us  to  the  act  by  which  different  similar 
attributes  are  treated  as  one,  or  the  same  act  in  which  separate 
individual  beings  are  united  as  one  by  their  common  attribute  or 
attributes.  Notion,  on  the  other  hand,  indicates  that  which  is  or 
may  be  known  by  certain  signs  or  marks,  notce — i.  e.,  constituting, 
defining,  and  distinguishing  attributes.  Both  terms  may  be 
properly  employed  as  technical  and  scientific  designations. 

The  reality  of  any  such  mental  product  or  thought-object  has 
been  questioned,  chiefly  by  those  who  have  misunderstood  or 
misconceived  its  nature.  Its  import  or  nature  has  been  imper- 
fectly or  vaguely  estimated  even  by  many  who  have  believed  in 
its  reality.  It  is  only  by  explaining  its  nature,  both  negatively 
and  positively,  that  its  reality  can  be  vindicated  and  established. 

The  concept  is  not  a  percept,  nor  is  its  object  an  object  as  per- 
ceived. This  last  is  strictly  individual ;  the  concept  is  uniformly 
general.  In  order  to  prove  this  beyond  question,  we  have  only 
to  ask  what  the  mind  knows  when  it  sees  a  man,  and  what  it 
thinks  of  when  it  utters  the  word  man,  and  applies  it  in  thought 
to  the  human  species.  No  one  can  doubt  that  the  two  objects  of 
cognition  are  diverse. 

The  concept  is  not  a  mental  image,  or  the  object  of  the  mind's 
cognition  in  representation.  We  recall  an  individual  percept, 
one  or  many  ;  or  we  form,  by  creation,  some  image  unlike  any 
which  we  have  in  fact  perceived.  Both  are  clearly  distinguish- 
able from  that  which  the  mind  thinks  or  knows,  when  it  uses  a 
general  term. 

We  state  positively: — The  concept  is  a  purely  relative  object 
of  knowledge.  This  is  its  distinctive  feature,  that  it  holds  definite 
relations  to  objects  of  sense  and  consciousness.  As  a  mental 
product  and  mental  object,  it  is  relative,  being  formed  by  the 
mind  and  understood  by  the  mind  as  indifferently  common  to 
single  objects ;  which  objects  only  enable  the  mind  to  understand 


§  196.  FORMATION  OF  THE  CONCEPT  OR  NOTION.  331 

its  import.  The  individual  things  to  which  it  relates,  give 
to  It  all  its  significance  and  utility.  Without  these,  it  is 
a  no-thing,  an  unintelligible  and  unreal  fancy.  This  peculiarity 
of  the  concept  is  implied  in  its  various  appellations.  It  is 
called  a  general,  that  is,  capable  of  being  thought  of  many 
individuals,  which  are  thereby  grouped  into  or  conceived  as  a 
class.  It  is  called  also  a  predicable,  by  its  very  nature  capable 
of  being  affirmed  or  thought  of  single  objects.  It  is  a  univer- 
sal— i.  e.t  as  pertaining  alike  to  all  the  individuals  to  which 
it  belongs. 

Again :  as  being  this  common  and  relative  thing,  the  concept 
respects  only  the  similar  attributes  of  individuals,  or  such  as  might 
be  supposed  to  be  alike.  It  respects  those  elements  which 
analysis  can  separate  as  individually  distinct,  and  comparison  can 
unite  as  alike.  Attributes,  properties,  and  relations,  are  the  only 
objects  which  it  respects.  These  are  first  discerned,  then  com- 
pared, then  united  into  a  single  thought-object.  Herein  lies  the 
difference  between  the  act  of  a  brute  and  the  act  of  a  man  in 
perceiving  objects  that  are  alike.  In  one  sense,  the  brute  may 
perceive  what  is  similar  as  readily  as  a  man ;  in  some  cases,  even 
more  quickly,  for  his  senses  may  be  more  keen.  If  he  has  been 
ill-treated  by  any  other  animal,  or  frightened  by  any  object, 
every  thing  like  either  will  be  avoided  at  once.  But  the  brute  does 
not  attend  and  analyze  as  does  a  man.  Hence  he  cannot  dis- 
criminate so  as  to  abstract ;  or,  at  best,  the  degree  and  range 
of  such  efforts  must  be  very  limited.  His  power  to  compare  and 
discern  the  like  and  the  unlike  would  for  this  reason  be  lame  and 
feeble,if  no  other  could  be  suggested.  Should  it  be  granted  that  the 
brute  can  discern  similar  attributes,  it  has  no  power  at  all  to  con- 
ceive or  think  the  similar  as  the  same.  It  cannot  form  and  use  a 
concept  as  founded  on  attributes  and  as  common  to  individual! 
beings.  Hence,  the  brute  is  incapable  of  language.  He  may 
utter  sounds  and  cries  which  instinct  extorts  and  to  which  the 
instinct  of  the  hearer  responds,  and  thus  the  voice  and  ear  of  the 
animal  tribes  may  serve  some  of  the  useful  and  social  ends  which 
language  accomplishes  in  man ;  but  the  brute  is  incapable  of 
using  words  as  the  signs  of  concepts,  because  he  is  incapable  of 
thought.  He  cannot  form  and  use  a  concept,  and  therefore  he 
can  neither  speak  nor  understand  a  single  word.  Even  the  parrot, 


332  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  197. 

that  miracle  of  talkers,  is  incapable  of  language,  and  never  utters 
what  deserves  to  be  called  a  word. 

We  observe  still  further,  that  all  which  the  concept  contem- 
plates or  signifies,  is  the  common  attributes  which  are  discerned 
in  the  individuals  to  which  it  is  applied.  These  attributes  are 
its  proper  and  sole  import  or  signification.  The  concept,  as  such, 
is  not  at  all  concerned  with  the  number  of  individuals  in  which 
these  attributes  are  found,  or  with  anything  else  which  may  be 
true  of  them.  It  is  all  the  same  to  our  thinking  and  to  the  con- 
cept which  we  form  by  thinking,  whether  the  tree  of  which  we 
make  and  use  the  notion,  is  here  or  there ;  is  high  or  low  ;  is  the 
tree  which  we  have  often  seen  and  admired,  or  the  tree  which  is 
ten  thousand  miles  distant ;  is  the  tallest  of  the  cedars  of  Leba- 
non, or  of  the  firs  of  California,  or  the  most  dwarfed  that  exists 
on  the  coldest  mountain  summit.  It  is  even  in  differ  c  whether 
it  actually  exists  or  not ;  it  is  only  essential  that  it  be  formed 
by  the  mind  from  the  actual  constituents  of  every  object  that  is 
properly  called  a  tree. 

§  197.  Concepts  are  distinguished  in  their  applica- 

Concepts    as      .  . 

concrete  and  tion,  as  concrete  and  abstract.  I  he  concrete  notion 
siinpie  '  and  contemplates  attributes,  and  is  applied  to  beings  ex- 
contekTandei-  isting.  The  abstract  notion  treats  attributes  as  though 
they  were  themselves  such  beings.  Man  and  human 
are  concrete;  humanity  is  an  abstract  notion.  The  concrete 
notions  are  applied  directly  to  an  actually  existing  being,  for  pur- 
poses of  classification  and  language,  which  need  not  here  be 
explained.  The  abstract  humanity  is  applied  to  designate  a  being 
that  is  purely  fictitious,  but  which,  in  language  and  in  thought, 
is  treated  as  though  it  possessed  actual  existence.  The  attribute 
is  conceived  as  a  being,  in  having  attributes  affirmed  of  it;  as 
when  we  say,  humanity  implies  liability  to  error.  It  has  adjectives 
prefixed  to  it,  as  in  the  phrase,  our  original  humanity.  It  is 
divided  into  classes:  humanity  is  either  refined  or  degraded, 
etc.  In  short,  it  is  capable  of  being  treated  in  every  way,  as 
though  there  were  living  beings  called  humanities.  But  when 
we  analyze  the  real  meaning  of  language,  and  the  thoughts  of 
those  who  use  it,  we  find  that  the  only  beings  distinguished  by 
the  mind  are  the  living  men  who  are  endowed  with  human  attri- 
butes. 


§  197.  FORMATION  OF  THE  CONCEPT  OR  NOTION.  333 

Concepts,  again,  are  still  further  distinguished  as  simple  and 
complex.  Those  notions  which  are  made  from  a  single  attribute, 
are  simple.  Those  which  are  made  of  more  than  one,  are  com- 
plex. Simple  notions  are  called,  by  Locke,  simple  ideas.  They 
cannot  be  analyzed  or  decomposed  into  any  constituent  elements. 
The  mind  directly  discerns  them  by  its  various  powers  of  know- 
ledge. Such  words  as  white,  whiteness,  green,  greenness,  etc., 
etc.,  are  usually  given  as  the  names  of  simple  notions.  It  would 
be  more  exact  to  say  that  we  treat  these  notions  as  simple,  be- 
cause we  do  not  ordinarily  distinguish  in  thought,  or  by  lan- 
guage, the  discernible  shades  of  white  and  green.  Those  which 
are  properly  simple,  would  be  such  shades  of  color  as  can  be 
distinguished  from  every  other.  On  the  other  hand,  chalk, 
chalky,  are  complex  notions,  because  they  signify  more  than  one 
attribute.  So,  man  and  human  are  complex  spiritual  notions,  for 
they  contain  many  attributes. 

No  thing  or  being  actually  existing  is  represented  by  a  simple 
notion.  A  grain  of  sand  or  a  mote  in  the  sunbeam,  is  complex, 
for  it  has  form,  dimensions,  color,  weight,  etc.,  etc.  Nature  gives 
us  no  simple  ideas.  She  touches  us  through  too  many  avenues 
of  knowledge.  She  leads  us  to  observe  varied  attributes  in 
every  existing  thing.  We,  in  our  thinking,  analyze  and  separate 
her  complex  objects,  and  reconstruct  and  recombine  the  elements 
which,  at  her  prompting,  we  have  abstracted  and  generalized 
In  this  way  we  separate  and  reconstruct  the  elements  or  attri- 
butes of  material  objects  as  nature  exhibits  them  to  us,  as  of 
plants,  and  animals.  Thus,  all  the  concepts  which  are  expressed 
by  the  general  terms  that  form  the  staple  of  every  language,  are 
constructed  by  the  mind.  They  are  passed  from  one  mind  to 
another.  They  are  fixed  in  words  and  recorded  in  books  and 
literature.  The  names  of  the  objects  that  human  art  and  skill 
has  constructed  for  use  or  beauty,  likewise  stand  for  the  complex 
of  simple  notions  which  we  observe  in  these  objects.  The  arti- 
ficial creations,  such  as  are  conceived  by  human  invention  and 
spring  from  human  society,  the  crimes  which  are  defined  by 
human  law,  the  offices  and  relations  of  government,  the  signs 
and  proofs  of  property,  the  rights  and  duties  of  men,  all  these 
are  complex  notions,  which  are  made  and  sustained  by  civilized 
men,  and  interest  most  profoundly  their  hopes  and  fears.  These 


334  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  197. 

are  still  further  removed  from  the  notions  and  terms  more  usually 
conceived  as  abstracta,  but,  like  these,  they  are  susceptible  of 
being  so  analyzed  as  to  be  carried  back  to  living  beings.  But 
these  all  are  complex  notions,  and  some  of  them  are  exceedingly 
complex  in  their  constituent  elements.  If  we  consult  a  dic- 
tionary, and  run  the  eye  down  its  lists  of  words,  we  shall  be 
surprised  to  find  how  large  a  portion  of  them  stand  for  these 
artificial  creations,  these  complexes  of  abstracted  properties. 

Still  further,  notions  are  technically  distinguished  by  their  re- 
lations of  content  and  extent,  or,  as  they  are  often  termed,  their 
comprehension  and  extension,  their  depth  and  breadth. 

These  relations  grow  out  of  the  very  nature  of  the  notion,  as 
has  been  shown  by  our  definitions.  A  notion  cannot  be  a  notion, 
unless  it  has  these  two  relations.  It  can  neither  be  formed  nor 
used  unless  both  these  relations  are  considered. 

The  content  of  the  notion  is  the  attribute,  or  attributes,  of 
which  it  consists.  It  is  its  contained  attributes  considered  as  a 
unit  or  whole.  Those  notions  whose  content  we  have  the  most 
frequent  occasion  to  consider,  are  complex  'notions.  Every 
simple  notion  has  a  proper  content  in  the  single  attribute  which, 
when  conceived  as  common,  is  mada  a  concept.  Such  complex 
notions  as  chalk,  snow,  milk,  felony,  burglary,  theft,  man,  spirit, 
body,  soul,  legislation,  monarchy,  republic,  a  state,  etc.,  have  so 
manifestly  a  sum  of  contained  attributes,  that  it  is  with  especial 
propriety  that  we  speak  of  their  content.  These  constitute  their 
meaning  or  import.  When  these  are  fully  stated,  the  notion  is 
defined.  They  are  also  called  the  essence,  or  essential  constituents, 
of  the  notion,  because  thsy  mika  up  or  form  its  being  as  a 
thought-product  or  thought-creation. 

The  extent  of  a  notion  originally  and  proparly  signifies  the 
number  of  individuals  to  which  it  is  applicable.  If  W3  could 
know,  by  actual  enumeration,  how  many  horses  or  men  there  are 
at  any  time  existing,  their  sum  would  be  the  extent  of  the  no  Lion 
horse.  We  rarely,  however,  have  occasion  to  consider  indi- 
viduals ;  for  these  are  divided  again  and  again  into  larger  and 
smaller  groups,  to  each  of  which  there  Is  a  fixed  notion  and 
name.  These  divisions  are  effected  by  adding  to  the  content  of 
the  notion  which  includes  a  greater  number  of  individuals,  an 
additional  attribute— in  the  case  of  the  horse,  an  attribute  of 


§  198.  FORMATION  OF  THE  CONCEPT  OR  NOTION.  335 

color,  perhaps  ;  and  we  have  a  new  content,  white  horse,  black 
horse,  etc.,  giving  an  extent  of  fewer  individuals.  In  many 
cases,  we  designate  the  concept  thus  newly-forined  by  a  separate 
name,  as  pony,  for  a  small  horse,  charger,  hunter,  roadster,  etc. 
So  trees  are  divided  by  means  of  notions,  whose  content  is  given 
as  deciduous  and  non-deciduous.  The  latter  are  divided  into 
pines,  firs,  etc.;  the  firs  are  again  divided  into  hemlocks. 
spruces,  etc.,  each  having  some  attribute  not  belonging  to  the 
content  indicated  by  the  word  fir  or  fir-tree.  In  consequence  of 
these  divisions  or  groupings  of  individuals  into  broader  and  nar- 
rower classes,  the  extent  of  the  notion  in  actual  use  always 
stops  short  with  subordinate  groups,  and  does  not  carry  us  down 
or  back  to  the  included  individuals.  These  individuals  are 
always  intended,  however,  and  the  subordinate  classes  are  said 
to  constitute  the  extent,  because  they,  in  their  turn,  are  applicable 
to  and  comprehend  individuals. 

As  the  content  of  a  notion  is  exhibited  by  definition,  so  the  ex- 
tent is  shown  by  division.  This  division  is  effected  as  the  indirect 
consequence  of  adding  to  the  content  of  the  notion  a  new  attri- 
bute, which  immediately  narrows  its  extent.  The  adding  a  new 
attribute,  or  new  attributes,  for  this  end,  is  called  determination, 
or  the  act  of  bounding  off,  or  limiting. 

It  follows  that,  as  the  content  of  a  notion  is  increased,  its  extent 
is  diminished.  Hence  the  maxim  :  the  content  is  inversely  as 
the  extent.  Both  propositions  are  true,  the  greater  the  extent, 
the  smaller  the  content  ;  the  greater  the  content,  the  smaller  the 
extent. 

§  198.  In  forming  the  notion  from,  and  applying 


the  notion  to,  individual  objects,  the  intellect  classifies   its  ^dghT  and 
these  objects  ;  that  is,  it  groups  them  into   divisions   c!es!ien 
which  are  broader  and  narrower  in  their  extent  ;  and 
of  course  higher  and  lower  when  ranked  according  to  their  place 
in  a  system.     This  consequence  follows  from  the  fact  that  nature 
has   so   constructed    individual   beings   that   they   are    capable 
of  being  grouped  into  larger  and  smaller  divisions,  by  means  of 
their  resembling  attributes;  and  fro  na  the  desire  in  the  human 
soul  which  meets  this  fact  of  nature  by  connecting  objects  in  an 
orderly  arrangement. 

The  first  efforts  at  classification  are  necessarily  rude  and  im- 


336  THE  HUMAN  INTELLECT.  §  198. 

perfect.  Children  when  left  to  themselves  group  together  objects 
in  singular  combinations  and  discern  resemblances  between 
things  which  older  people  never  would  think  of  connecting.  In 
the  poverty  of  their  language  they  apply  the  words  which  they 
possess,  to  the  strangest  uses,  on  the  very  slightest  and  the  most 
whimsical  analogies.  They  soon  learn  better,  as  we  say.  That 
is,  they  take  from  older  persons  the  conceptions  and  classifications 
which  have  been  made  before  them.  In  other  words,  they  think 
over  again  the  concepts  that  are  made  ready  and  presented  for 
their  use,  in  the  words  of  which  they  learn  both  the  import  and 
the  application.  In  learning  to  talk  they  are  constrained  to  fall 
in  with  those  classifications  which  previous  generations  have 
made  before  them,  and  have  recorded  in  the  language  which  they 
have  left  behind. 

Savages  do  not  classify  under  the  same  restraints.  When  novel 
objects  are  presented  to  them,  they  usually  seek  out  some  concept 
or  word  already  known  and  familiar,  and  extend  it  to  the  novel 
object  by  some  resemblance,  however  forced  or  violent  this  may  be. 
The  goats  which  Captain  Cook  carried  to  the  Pacific  Islands 
were  called  by  the  natives  horned  hogs :  the  horse  on  a  like 
occasion  was  called  a  large  dog.  The  dog  and  the  hog  being  the 
only  quadrupeds  with  which  these  savages  were  familiar,  these 
novel  animals  were  taken  into  the  only  concepts  and  names  that 
were  ready  for  their  reception.  When  the  Romans  first  saw 
elephants,  they  called  the  animal  Bos  Lucas  or  Lueanus,  a  Lu- 
canian  ox,  from  the  province  in  Italy  where  they  were  first  seen. 

The  classifications  of  science  differ  from  those  of  common  life  in 
being  founded  on  a  more  exact  observation,  and  directed  by  the 
special  rules  which  are  furnished  by  scientific  principles.  These 
may  be  certain  assumed  ends  or  known  powers  or  laws  of  nature 
which  were  discovered  long  after  the  classifications  had  been  per- 
fected which  are  recorded  in  the  words  of  common  life.  The 
classification  of  animals  into  vertebrates,  articulates,  mollusks, 
radiates,  and  protozoans,  and  the  subdivision  of  the  vertebrates 
into  mammals,  birds,  reptiles,  and  fishes,  are  very  different  from 
those  represented  in  the  words  horse,  ox,  whale,  snake,  hawk, 
quail,  robin.  Neither  the  so-called  natural  nor  the  artificial 
systems  of  botany  give  us  what  we  know  under  the  household 
names  of  the  lily,  the  rose,  the  pink,  and  the  violet.  And  yet 


§  198.         THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  CONCEPT  OR  NOTION.  337 

these  common  names  do  as  really  classify  their  objects  as  do 
scientific  names.  To  classify  is  no  secret  of  science,  no  process 
reserved  for  the  select  few  who  are  initiated  into  a  magic  art,  but 
it  is  as  universal  and  necessary  as  the  act  of  thinking.  The 
classifications  of  common  life  may  be  as  rational  and  as  useful 
for  the  ends  of  common  life  as  are  those  of  science  for  its  .special 
uses.  They  are  founded  on  the  obvious  appearances  of  objects 
to  the  senses  and  the  mind.  They  are  adapted  to  the  uses  of  men 
of  ordinary  culture.  Indeed  what  wealth  of  thinking  does  .every 
cultivated  language  embody  and  represent !  Each  one  of  its 
words  has  gathered  into  its  subtle  essence  the  results  of  the  repeated 
and  refined  observations  of  the  men  who  perhaps  by  successive 
efforts  at  last  reached  the  concept  which  each  single  term  enshrines. 
In  like  manner  the  technical  nomenclature  of  a  single  science 
when  finished  and  arranged,  is  a  transcript  of  all  the  discrimina- 
ting thoughts,  the  careful  observations,  and  the  manifold  experi- 
ments by  which  the  science  has  been  formed.  It  represents  in 
brief,  all  the  most  careful  definitions  and  the  most  complete  and 
best  classified  divisions  which  the  devotees  to  its  special  objects 
have  perfected  by  their  labors. 

Classification  is  nearly  allied  to  systemization.  The  division 
of  objects  into  classes  which  are  broader  and  narrower,  has  a  close 
affinity  with  their  orderly  arrangement  in  classes  which  are 
higher  and  lower,  through  a  succession  of  divisions  and  subdivi- 
sions. Both  result  from  the  application  of  notions  in  their  extent 
to  existing  objects  or  to  objects  which  are  conceived  to  exist. 

Classification  and  systemization,  are  the  characteristics  and 
consequences  of  all  thought-knowledge  and  preeminently  of 
scientific  knowledge.  They  are  indispensable  to  enable  us  to 
grasp  individual  facts  and  to  retain  our  observations.  They  are 
an  intellectual  convenience  and  an  intellectual  necessity.  But 
they  do  not  constitute  the  whole  of  thought  or  the  whole  of 
science.  Though  scientific  knowledge  is  of  necessity  classified 
and  arranged  knowledge,  yet  much  more  than  this  is  true  of  it. 

We  have  entered  within  the  threshold  of  our  analysis  and 
comprehension  of  thought-knowledge,  but  the  light  which  shines 
from  the  inner  sanctuary  casts  its  radiance  only  upon  those 
objects  which  are  the  nearest  to  our  view.  It  remains  for  us  to 
consider  other  acts,  involving  profounder  relations  in  the  consti- 
15 


338  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §199. 

tution  of  the  universe,  in  the  methods  and  forms  of  our  thinking, 
and  in  the  products  which  this  thinking  evolves. 

§  199.  It  will  not  be  amiss,  however,  to  ask  at  this 
we°  gakiuch  by  stage  of  our  inquiries,  what  addition  do  we  make  to 
conn°c^tsg?  ]  Y  the  knowledge  which  we  gain  by  perception  and  con- 
sciousness, by  superinducing  upon  it  the  acts  or  pro- 
cesses of  thought  which  we  have  thus  far  considered?  What  do 
we  know  more  about  an  object  seen  or  experienced,  by  general- 
izing its  attributes,  determining  its  class,  or  assigning  to  it  a 
name  ?  We  may  answer  this  question  by  asking  two  or  three 
others.  What  more  does  a  man  know  about  a  single  apple  by 
calling  it  an  apple,  a  fruit,  a  plant-product,  an  organized  being, 
than  he  does  by  seeing,  feeling,  tasting,  and  smelling  it  ?  We 
answer,  its  common  relations,  i.  e.,  properties,  attributes,  and 
uses.  When  we  think  or  intelligently  say  of  a  sense-object,  it  is 
an  apple,  we  both  think,  and  impliedly  say  of  it,  it  is  like  a 
multitude  of  other  sense-objects,  in  many  most  important  respects, 
as  of  color,  taste,  size,  etc.  When  we  think  or  know  it  to  be  a 
fruit,  we  enlarge  still  more  widely  the  sphere  or  extent  of  the 
objects  to  which  it  holds  relations.  So  when  we  think  it  to  be  a 
plant-product. 

That  was  no  inconsiderable  act  which  wras  signified  by  the  re- 
cord which  describes  the  various  living  animals  as  brought  to  Adam 
that  he  might  name  them.  The  capacity  to  name  them  implied 
an  insight  into  their  nature.  For  this  reason  it  must  of  neces- 
sity be  true,  if  we  suppose  the  original  man  to  have  been  en- 
dowed with  the  requisite  discernment,  that  "  whatsoever  Adam 
called  every  living  creature,  that  was  the  name'  thereof."  It 
seems  to  be  a  trifling  thing  for  the  child  to  be  able  to  affix  suita- 
ble names  to  the  objects  and  beings  which  first  attract  its  atten- 
tion. At  first  thought  the  act  is  trivial,  mechanical,  parrot-like, 
as  it  were,  to  attach  an  articulate  sound  to  one  or  more  similar 
objects  ;  but  when  we  view  it  as  implying  the  power  of  intelli- 
gently applying  this  name  to  a  still  larger  number  of  objects  which 
are  in  many  respects  unlike  and  yet  alike,  it  becomes  an  act  of 
the  gravest  import.  It  indicates  an  important  development  of 
the  soul's  action,  and  the  evolution  of  a  new  product.  When 
the  child  asks,  What  is  it  ?  meaning  thereby,  What  is  it  called  ? 
it  really  asks,  What  is  the  nature,  what  are  the  relations,  of  the 


§  201.  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  CONCEPT.  339 

object  to  which  the  name  belongs,  as  it  learns  one  by  one  what 
these  relations  are,  and  notices  in  what  they  are  alike,  and  in 
what  they  are  unlike. 

That  was  no  slight  achievement  of  Aristotle,  to  seize  upon,  bring  out  and  es- 
tablish the  truth  that  the  concept  of  an  object  either  declares  what  it  i8,or  at  least  in- 
dicates the  direction  which  must  be  taken  in  order  to  find  this.  The  concept  is  the 
permanent  what-ness  or  what-sort-of-ness,  which  may  be  thought  of  the  things  to 
which  it  is  applied.  It  is  the  TO  ri  %v  elvai,  i.  e.,  its  real  and  permanent  nature. 
To  ask  what  a  thing  is,  according  to  Aristotle,  is  to  take  the  first  step  and  per- 
form the  first  of  the  processes  which  are  essential  to  its  complete  mastery.  It  is 
to  propose  the  first  of  those  questions,  the  answers  to  all  of  which  carry  the  mind 
through  the  entire  circle  of  scientific  knowledge.  Aristotle  also  recognises  the 
intimate  connection  of  the  concept  with  the  word,  calling  the  two  by  the  same 
term,  o  Adyo?. 

§  200.  The  what  which  the  concept  and  the  word 
both  propose  to  communicate,  is  not  the  direct  ob-  kn^wfedg"  by 
servation  which  presentation  gives,  but  the  higher  byninTi?tions.d 
and  more  comprehensive  knowledge  which  thought 
aims  to  achieve.     It  is  not  the  knowledge  that  a  being  is,  but  the 
analytic  and  comparative  knowledge  of  its  relations. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  NATURE   OF   THE   CONCEPT. — SKETCH  OF   THEORIES. 

IN  the  preceding  chapter  we  have  considered  the  nature  of  the  concept  in  a 
general  way,  so  far  as  was  required  in  the  analysis  and  explanation  of  the  psy- 
chological process  by  which  it  is  formed.  We  return  to  it  a  second  time  for  more 
careful  consideration. 

§  201.  The  nature  of  the  concept  and  its  relation  to  real  or  ex- 
isting objects  has  been  the  occasion  of  endless  speculation,  of  fan-      The  doctrines 
tastic  theories,  and  of  sharp  and  persistent  controversies  in  every    p^to^and  Ar- 
period  distinguished  by  philosophical  inquiry.     Socrates  was  the    istotle. 
first  to  insist  upon  the  importance  of  forming  concepts   of  the  ob- 
jects of  our  knowledge  in  order  that  the  permanent  and  essential  might  be  elimi- 
nated from  that  which  is  accidental  and  transitory  in  individual  objects.     But  he 
taught  little  or  nothing  in  respect  to  the  nature  of  the  concept,  or  of  that  in  the 
object  to  which  the  concept  is  the  counterpart  or  correlate.     Plato  took  up  the  in- 
quiry where  Socrates  left  it;  insisting  more  abundantly  than  he  upon  the  neces- 
sity of  this  higher  knowledge,  and  showing  that  in  attaining  it  we  must   define 
and  divide — must  go  from  the  individual  to  the  general,  by  successive  inductions, 
and  so  on  from  one  step  to  another,  till  we  reach  that  which  exists  of  and  by 


340  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  202. 

itself — that  which  is  alone  the  permanent  object  of  [true]  knowledge.  This  is  the 
idea,  q  '^ea.  or  TO  elfios.  But  what  this  idea  is,  and  what  are  its  relations  to  the  con- 
cept, he  does  not  accurately  teach ;  where  it  exists  he  does  not  assert ;  whether  in 
the  object  itself,  or  in  the  mind  of  the  Creator,  or  in  the  mind  of  each  thinking 
man,  he  does  not  define.  He  seems  to  teach  that  ideas,  or  the  idea,  have  an  exist- 
ence and  essence  separate  from  all  these,  that  they  are  eternal  and  incorruptible, 
existing  before  all  temporary  and  perishable  beings,  and  imparting  to  the  perisha- 
ble and  phenomenal  in  these  beings  all  their  dignity  and  interest.  Ideas  are  re- 
alities, things  and  events  are  their  shadows.  But  whether  by  these  representa- 
tions, he  intends  only  personification  and  poetic  fiction,  or  exact  scientific  defini- 
tion, is  not  always  easy  to  decide. 

As  against  Plato,  Aristotle  insists  that  the  only  real  beings  or  substances  are 
existing  beings  or  things,  the  Trpwrai  ovo-uu,  or  primary  entities,  as  he  calls  them. 
He  is  distinctly  aware  that  there  are  other  sorts  of  beings  besides  these.  The 
Sevrepai  ovaiai  or  second  entities  are  distinctly  discriminated  from  the  Trpwrcu  ovortoi, 
or  individual  beings.  He  aims  to  show  in  what  sense  the  former  are  so  called, 
and  how  they  are  related  to  real  beings,  or,  in  modern  phraseology,  to  show  the  re- 
lation of  concepts  to  real  existences.  This  he  does  by  distinguishing  between 
matter  and  form.  Matter  cannot  exist  without  form.  Every  existing  being  has  some 
determinate  form.  There  can  be  no  form  without  matter.  The  one  requires  the 
other.  The  two  are  correlates,  seeking  each  other,  as  Aristotle  figuratively 
speaks,  by  a  natural  appetency.  The  form  only  is  conceived  by  the  mind. 
What  the  mind  conceives  of  a  being  is  its  essence,  TO  ri  ty  elvai.  In  modern  lan- 
guage the  concept  is  made  up  of  the  essential  qualities  that  are  common  to  several 
individuals,  omitting  those  which  are  undiscriminated;  these  last  being  matter. 

Aristotle  set  out  with  the  determination  to  avoid  those  personifications  which 
so  abound  in  Plato.  But  he  did  not  entirely  succeed.  Should  we  concede  that 
he  was  not  himself  betrayed  into  hypostasizing  these  metaphors,  he  did  not 
secure  his  disciples  from  this  error.  So  it  happened  that  the  ideas  of  Plato  and 
the  forms  of  Aristotle  were  both  regarded  as  actual  realities,  and  as  such,  fur- 
nished fruitful  material  for  the  subtleties  and  controversies  of  their  earlier  disci- 
ples and  commentators,  in  the  decadence  of  the  Greek  philosophy. 

$  202.  It  was,  however,  among  the  scholastics  of  the  middle  ages 
Porphyry's  that  such  discussions  became  conspicuous,  in  the  schools  of  the 
the  scholastics.  Realists,  the  Conceptualists,  and  the  Nominalists.  The  immediate 
occasion  of  these  discussions  and  controversies  was  furnished  by  a 
passage  from  Porphyry,  in  the  preface  to  his  Introduction  to  the  Categories  of 
Aristotle.  This  Introduction  was  translated  from  the  Greek  by  Boethius,  and 
a  brief  passage  proposed  the  problem  for  the  different  sects  which  we  have  named — 
who  received  their  appellations  from  the  different  solutions  which  they  gave  to  it. 
"  Mox  de  generibus  ct  speciebus,  illud  quidem,  sive  subsistent,  sive  in  solis  nudis 
intellectibus  posita  sint,  sive  subsistentia  corporalia  sint  an  incorporalia,  et  utrum 
separata  a  sensibilibus  posita,  circa  haec  consistentia  dicere  recusabo.  Altissimum 
enim  negotium  est  hujus  modi  et  majoris  egens  inquisitionis."  In  other  words, 
the  questions  which  naturally  suggest  themselves  concerning  Universals  are  the 
following  : 

'  Have  Universals  a  separate  existence,or  do  they  exist  in  the  mind  only  f  If  they 
"have  a  separate  existence,  are  they  corporeal  or  incorporeal  ?  Are  they  separably 
from  sensible  objects  or  do  they  subsist  in  these  only?' 


§  203.  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  CONCEPT.  341 

The  extreme  Realists  answered  these  questions  in  the  spirit  of  Plato,  or  rather 
of  the  doctrine  which  Aristotle  ascribed  to  Plato,  viz. :  that  Universals  have  an 
existence  that  is  separate  from  and  independent  of  individual  objects.  They  even 
contended  that  they  exist  before  these,  in  rank  and  creative  power,  certainly  in 
point  of  time.  These  views  were  formulated  in  the  motto  Universalia  ante  rem. 

The  moderate  Realists  adopted  the  creed  of  Aristotle  that  Universals  have  a 
real  existence,  but  only  in  individuals.  Their  motto  consequently  became  Univer- 
salia  in  re. 

The  Conceptualists  and  Nominalists  agreed  in  this  that  individuals  alone  have 
real  existence ;  and  that  Universals,  both  genera  and  species,  are  formed  by  the 
mind,  by  bringing  together  many  similar  objects  and  designating  them  by  com- 
mon terms. 

They  differed  in  that  the  extreme  Nominalists  held  that  the  name  only  is  general 
and  is  employed  to  avoid  an  indefinite  number  of  proper  names  which  would  be 
otherwise  required;  while  the  Conccptualists  interposed  a  concept  between  the 
name  and  the  objects  collected  into  a  class.  The  motto  of  both  Conceptualists  and 
Nominalists  was  Universalia  post  rem. 

The  differences  of  opinion  that  ripened  into  these  separate  philosophical  sects 
began  to  be  manifest  in  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries.  It  was  not,  however,  till 
the  second  half  of  the  eleventh  that  different  philosophers  and  theologians  were 
commonly  known  by  tb.es*  appellations,  and  that  the  doctrines  themselves  became 
the  occasion  of  earnest  and  bitter  strife.  These  divisions  reappeared  at  intervals 
and  were  not  finally  terminated  before  early  in  the  fourteenth. 

$  203.  In  modern  times  the  diversities  of  opinion  in  respect  to 
the  nature  of  the  concept  have  been  as  great,  and  the  controversies 
well  nigh  as  active  as  they  were  among  the  schoolmen.  The 
same  questions  have  in  fact  been  agitated,  and  the  same  difficulties  encountered, 
with  this  difference — that  the  form  which  these  questions  have  taken  has  been 
more  generally  psychological,  rather  than  metaphysical.  This  was  no  more  than 
was  to  be  expected  from  the  general  course  of  modern  philosophy.  But  in  the 
recent  German  speculations,  the  logical  and  metaphysical  direction  of  thought 
has  preponderated  over  the  psychological  and  inductive. 

Hobbes,  a  nominalist  of  the  extremest  school,  says,  Human  Nature  (c.  5,  g  6) 
"  The  universality  of  one  name  to  many  things  hath  been  the  cause  that  men 
think  the  things  themselves  are  universal ;  and  so  seriously  contend  that  besides 
Peter  and  John  and  all  the  rest  of  the  men  that  are,  have  been,  or  shall  be  in  the 
world,  there  is  something  else  that  we  call  man,  viz. :  man  in  genera!,  deceiving 
themselves,  by  taking  the  universal  or  general  appellation  for  the  thing  it  signi- 
fieth."  *  *  *  "It  is  plain,  therefore,  there  is  nothing  Universal  but  Names."  In 
The  Leviathan  (p.  i.,  c.  iv.)  he  says  :  "  There  being  nothing  universal  but  names, 
for  the  things  named  are  every  one  of  them  Individual  and  Singular,  one  Uni- 
versal name  is  imposed  on  many  things  for  their  similitude  in  some  quality  or 
accident." 

Loske,  on  the  other  hand,  who  was  a  Conceptualiat,  says  in  his  Eisay  (B.  IV.- 
c.  vii.,$  9),  "Does  it  not  require  some  pains  and  skill  to  form  the  general  idea  of 
a  triangle,  [which  is  yet  none  of  the  most  abstract,  comprehensive,  and,  difficult,] 
for  it  must  be  neither  oblique  nor  rectangle,  neither  equilateral,  equicrural,  nor 
scalenon ;  but  all  and  none  of  these  at  once.  In  effect,  it  is  something  imperfect 
that  cannot  exist  [«.  e.,  in  fact,  or  actually] ;  an  idea  wherein  some  parts  of  several 


342  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  203. 

different  and  inconsistent  ideas  are  put  together.  'Tis  true  the  mind  in  this  im- 
perfect state  has  need  of  such  Ideas,  and  makes  all  the  haste  to  them  it  can,  for 
the  conveniency  of  communication,  and  enlargement  of  knowledge."  That  he 
was  not  a  Realist  appears  from  the  following  (B.  III.,c.  iii.,g  11  sqq.) :  *  *  "  It 
is  plain  by  what  has  been  said,  that  General  and  Universal,  belong  not  to  the  real 
existence  of  things ;  but  are  the  inventions  and  creatures  of  the  understanding, 
made  by  it  for  its  own  use,  and  concern  only  signs,  whether  words  or  ideas." 
"  When  therefore  we  quit  particulars  the  generals  that  rest  [remain]  are  creatures 
of  our  own  making,  their  general  nature  being  nothing  but  the  capacity  they  are 
put  to  by  the  understanding,  of  signifying  or  representing  many  particulars." 
He  argues  at  length  against  the  Realistic  doctrine  of  permanent  essences  or  spe- 
cies. "  Whereby  it  is  plain  that  the  essences  of  the  sorts,  or  (if  the  Latin  term 
please  better)  species  of  things,  are  nothing  else  but  these  abstract  ideas."  "  To 
be  a  man  or  of  the  species  man,  and  to  have  a  right  to  the  name  man,  is  the  same 
thing.  Again,  to  be  a  man,  or  of  the  same  species  man,  and  have  the  essence  of 
a  man,  is  the  same  thing." 

To  these  doctrines  of  Locke,  Leibnitz,  in  his  Nouveaux  Essais, 

G.  W.  Leibnitz,    takes  the  following  exceptions  :  He  denies  that  the  essence  of  the 

species  is  only  an  abstract  idea,  and  asserts  that  the  generality  of 

such  ideas  consists  in  the  mutual  resemblance  of  individual  things,  and  this  re~ 

semblance  is  a  reality.     (Nouv.  Ess.,  B.  III.,c.  iii.,g  11.) 

Berkeley,  Introduction  to  the  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge,  thus  attacks  the 
doctrine  of  Locke.  After  describing  the  doctrine  as  commonly  received,  he  pro- 
ceeds: "Whether  others  have  this  wonderful  faculty  of  abstracting  their  ideas, 
they  best  can  tell;  for  myself  I  find,  indeed,  I  have  a  faculty  of  imagining,  or  re- 
presenting to  myself  the  ideas  of  those  particular  things  I  have  perceived,  and  of 
variously  compounding  and  dividing  them.  I  can  imagine  a  man  with  two  heads, 
or  the  upper  parts  of  a  man  joined  to  the  body  of  a  horse.  I  can  consider  the 
hand,  the  eye,  the  nose,  each  by  itself  abstracted  or  separated  from  the  rest  of  the 
body,  but  then  whatever  hand  or  eye  I  imagine  must  have  some  particular  shape 
and  color.  Likewise,  the  idea  of  man  that  I  frame  to  myself,  must  be  either  of  a 
white,  or  a  black,  or  a  tawny,  a  straight  or  a  crooked,  a  tall,  or  a  low,  or  a  mid- 
dle-size'd  man But  I  deny  that  I  can  abstract  one  from  another  or  con- 
ceive separately  those  qualities  which  it  is  impossible  should  exist  so  separated; 
or  that  I  can  frame  a  general  notion  by  abstracting  from  particulars  in  the  man- 
ner aforesaid."  And  yet  Berkeley,  in  another  passage  concedes  the  power  of  ab- 
straction so  far  as  this :  "A  man  may  consider  a  figure  merely  as  triangular,  with- 
out attending  to  the  particular  qualities  of  the  angles  or  relations  of  the  sides. 
So  far  he  may  abstract.  But  this  will  never  prove  that  he  can  frame  an  abstract, 
general,  inconsistent  idea  of  a  triangle."  In  respect  to  generalization  also,  ho 
concedes  the  following:  "An  idea,  which  considered  in  itself,  is  particular,  be- 
comes general  by  being  made  to  represent  or  stand  for  all  other  particular  ideas 
of  the  same  sort.  To  make  this  plain  by  an  example :  suppose  a  geometrician 
is  demonstrating  the  method  of  cutting  a  line  into  two  equal  parts.  He  draws 
for  instance,  a  black  line,  of  an  inch  in  length.  This,  which  is  itself  a  particular 
line,  is  nevertheless,  with  regard  to  its  signification,  general;  since  as  it  is  there 
used,  it  represents  all  particular  lines  whatsoever ;  .  .  .  .  and  so  the  name  liner 
which  taken  absolutely  is  particular,  by  being  a  sign  is  made  general." 

Hume  agrees  with  Berkeley,  adopting  nearly  his  language.    The  only  difference 


§  203.  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  CONCEPT.  343 

between  Hume  and  Berkeley  is,  that  Berkeley  makes  the  particular  idea  to  repre- 
sent the  general,  while  Hume  adds  that  it  becomes  general  by  being  annexed  to  a 
term  which  is  customarily  conjoined  with  many  particular  ideas,  and  readily  re- 
calls them.  In  other  words,  Hume  introduces  his  doctrine  of  the  association  of 
ideas  to  explain  how  one  idea  and  term  can  represent  several  objects,  and  become 
general.  This  last  doctrine  has  been  expanded  and  re-applied  by  later  writers. 

Reid,  in  criticising  both  Hume  and  Berkeley,  does  not  give  his  own  views  in 
tho  form  of  a  statement  precisely  denned.  He  seems  scarcely  to  know  what  his 
own  opinion  is.  In  respect,  however,  to  the  question  under  consideration  as  to 
the  nature  of  the  concept,  he  lays  down  some  important  distinctions  which  are 
quite  in  advance  of  the  doctrines  previously  admitted.  He  observes  (1)  that  a 
general  idea  must  be  the  product  of  an  individual  act  of  the  mind,  and  in  that 
sense  and  so  far,  is  an  individual,  and  not  a  general,  entity.  (2.)  "  Universals  can- 
not be  the  objects  of  imagination  when  we  take  that  word  in  its  strict  and  proper 
sense."  "  Every  man  will  find  in  himself  *  *  *  that  he  cannot  imagine  a 
man  without  color,  or  stature,  or  shape."  "  I  can  distinctly  conceive  universals, 
but  I  cannot  imagine  them."  (3.)  "Ideas  are  said  to  have  a  real  existence  in  the 
mind,  at  least  while  we  think  of  them,  but  universals  have  no  real  existence. 
When  we  ascribe  existence  to  them,  it  is  not  an  existence  in  time  or  place,  but  ex- 
istence in  some  individual  subject  j  and  this  existence  means  no  more,  but  that 
they  are  truly  attributes  of  such  a  subject.  Their  existence  is  nothing  but  predi- 
cability,  or  the  capacity  of  being  attributed  to  a  subject."  Essays  on  the  Intellec- 
tual Powers.  Essay  V.,c.  vi. 

Dr.  Thomas  Brown,  (Lectures:  46,  47)  avows  himself  to  be  a  conceptual- 
ist,  and  contends  that  all  the  nominalists  have  either  in  fact  admitted  or  un- 
consciously implied  the  truth  of  this  doctrine.  He  distinguishes  three 
steps  or  elements  in  the  generalizing  process  (1)  "the  perception  or  concep- 
tion of  two  or  more  objects,  (2)  the  relative  feeling  of  their  resemblance  in 
certain  respects,  (3)  the  designation  of  these  circumstances  of  resemblance 
by  an  appropriate  name."  He  criticises  some  expressions  of  the  conceptual- 
ists  as  incautious,  particularly  the  use  of  the  word  idea  to  express  "the  feeling 
of  resemblance,"  because  this  word  "  seems  almost  in  itself  to  imply  something 
which  can  be  individualized  and  offered  to  the  senses."  "  Tho  same  remark  may, 
in  a  great  measure,  be  applied  to  the  use  of  the  word  conception,  which  also  seems 
to  individualize  its  object."  "The  phrase  general  notion  would  have  been  far 
more  appropriate."  "  Still  more  unfortunate  is  a  verbal  impropriety  in  tho  use 
of  tho  indefinite  article."  "  It  was  not  the  mere  general  notion  of  the  nature  and 
properties  of  triangles,  but  the  general  idea  of  a  triangle  of  which  writers  *  * 
have  been  accustomed  to  speak."  This  has  exposed  the  doctrine  of  general  no- 
tions to  ridicule,  such  as  Martinus  Scriblerus  is  made  to  use  against  Locke. 

Sir  William  Hamilton,  (Lectures  on  Metaphysics,  Lee.  35)  criticises  Brown 
severely  for  misrepresenting  the  nominalists,  in  asserting  that  they  overlook 
the  fact  that  resemblance  in  individual  objects  is  the  ground  of  applying  to  them 
universal  names.  Hamilton  then  labors  earnestly  to  show  that  discerned  or  pre- 
dicated resemblance  is  individual,  and  not  general ;  inasmuch  as  if  likeness 
exists  between  a  pair  of  objects,  it  must  be  an  individual  relation  of  likeness. 

In  his  logic,  however,  and  in  all  the  treatment  which  he  gives  to  the  concept, 
Hamilton  proceeds  upon  the  hypothesis  of  Conceptualism,  in  the  manner  in  which 
Held  qualifies  and  explains  it.  Indeed,  it  would  seem  that  his  peculiar  doctrine 


344  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  203. 

«f  the  syllogism  and  deductive  reasoning  can  have  no  meaning  on  the  theory  of 
Nominalism.  And  yet  he  would  almost  have  us  believe  that  he  is  a  Nominalist, 
and  "  that  the  opposing  parties  are  really  at  one." 

John  Stuart  Mill,  in  his  Logic,  B.  i.,  c.  2,  and  his  Examination  of  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  Philosophy,  chap.  17,  earnestly  advocates  Nominalism.  Names  are 
names  of  things,  but  while  they  denote  things,  they  also  connote  the  attributes  of 
things.  Thus  horse  (or  chalk)  denotes  every  individual  horse  (or  piece  of  chalk), 
but  at  the  same  time  it  notes  or  marks,  i.  e.,  connotes  all  that  is  peculiar  to  every 
horse,  or  to  the  class  horse.  Instead  of  the  term  concept,  or  general  abstract  no- 
tion, Mill  would  use  class  name.  The  mind,  whenever  it  uses  the  class  name  in- 
telligently, must  have  some  individual  object  before  it,  either  perceived  or  re- 
membered. It  need  not,  however,  direct  its  attention  to  every  part  of  this  indivi- 
dual object.  It  need  think  of,  i.  e.,  attend  to,  only  those  parts  which  the  name 
connotes.  It  need  not  think  of  all  of  these  even,  but  only  of  those  which  it  has  oc- 
casion to  use  for  its  immediate  purposes. 

Of  the  modern  German  philosophers,  Kant  should  be  named  first,  not  only  in 
the  relation  of  time,  but  on  account  of  the  influence  which  he  has  exerted  upon 
all  subsequent  philosophy.  Kant  distinguished  very  sharply  between  individual 
and  general  objects  of  knowledge,  and  in  the  spirit  of  this  distinction  introduced 
many  technical  terms  which  are  not  only  still  retained  in  the  German  systems,  but 
have  been  adopted  by  English  thinkers.  Kant's  terminology  is  not  only  a  permanent 
monument  of  his  own  activity,  but  it  has  served  to  fix  some  very  important  dis- 
tinctions in  the  minds  of  speculative  men.  Kant  says  very  little  psychologically 
concerning  the  nature  of  the  concept  as  the  product  and  object  of  the  mind's  activ- 
ity, or  concerning  its  relation  to  the  objects  of  sense.  Speculatively,  however,  he 
treats  this  topic  very  fully.  First  of  all,  the  concept,  der  Begriff,  is  the  product 
and  object  of  the  understanding,  as  the  percept  die  Vorstellung — der  Sinnliche 
Gegenstand, — is  the  product  and  object  of  the  action  of  sense.  The  image  das  Bild, 
das  Schema,  is  the  work  of  the  fantasy,  both  reproductive  and  productive.  The 
percept  is  individual  and  so  is  the  image  proper.  The  concept  is  general  and  de- 
finite. The  Schema  is  intermediate  between  the  two,  being  indefinite  and  mova- 
ble, and  in  a  certain  sense  general  (cf.  $  149).  The  percept,  the  image,  and  the 
Schema  are  all  directly  apprehended  by  the  mind.  The  concept  is  mediately 
apprehended  and  mediately  applied,  requiring,  to  be  used,  that  it  should  be 
imaged  in  an  individual  object,  or  applied  to  some  individual.  Knowledge  by 
concepts  is  preeminently  mediate  knowledge. 

In  the  concept,  the  matter  is  distinguished  from  the  form.  The  matter  is  fur- 
nished by  the  senses,  the  form  by  the  understanding ;  before,  however,  the  two 
are  brought  together,  the  sense-matter  must  become  a  percept  in  the  forms  of 
space  and  time.  E.g.  The  matter  of  the  orange  is  furnished  by  all  the  senses.  This 
matter  becomes  the  percept  orange  by  taking  certain  relations  of  space.  It  be-i 
eomes  a  concept  by  being  viewed  by  the  understanding  as  a  being  with  attributes 
which  are  distinguished  from  each  other,  and  yet  are  common  to  many  indivi- 
duals, involving  the  recognition  of  diversity,  similarity,  and  production  or  causa- 
tion. These  and  other  such  forms  are  given  by  the  understanding  itself;  which, 
in  acts  of  thought,  as  it  were,  covers  over  or  invests  the  matter  of  the  senses  wiih 
any  or  all  of  them.  It  would  seem  from  these  doctrines,  that  Kant  was  emi- 
nently a  conceptualist,  inasmuch  as  he  insists  so  much  upon  the  concept  as  tho 
medium  of  thought,  and  so  often  repeats  the  assertion  that  thought  is  knowledge 


§  205.  NATURE  OF  THE  CONCEPT.  345 

by  the  medium  of  concepts.  But  he  does  not  declare  himself  such.  His  discus- 
sions are  all  logical  and  metaphysical  rather  than  psychological.  Though  a  theory 
of  the  powers  and  processes  of  the  soul  is  constantly  implied  by  him,  it  is  rarely 
presented  in  the  psychological  form. 

$  204.  Kant  emphatically  gave  that  ideal  direction  to  philosophy 
which  reached  its  terminus  in  the  extreme  doctrine  of  Hegel,  who  GK  W.  F.  Hegel 
makes  the  concept  everything  and  the  individual  nothing,  who 
evolves  the  real  world  from  the  concept,  to  which  he  ascribes  an  infinitude  of  ele- 
ments and  a  power  of  self-development,  adequate  to  produce  the  countless  varieties 
of  individual  things.  Should  it  be  said  that  this  is  a  misconstruction  of  his  doc- 
trine; that  he  treats  only  of  the  relation  of  concepts  to  one  another,  and  of  indi- 
viduals only  so  far  as  they  are  conceived  or  turned  into  concepts,  the  result  is  the 
same,  so  far  as  our  position  is  concerned ;  which  is  that  jje  does  not  concern  him- 
self with  the  relation  of  the  concept  to  the  individual,  nor  with  the  nature  of  the 
concept  as  a  product  of  the  mind,  or  as  a  representative  of  concrete  being,  but 
regards  it  as  an  all-sufficing  and  independent  entity.  Hegel  may  therefore  be 
called  a  logical  realist. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  NATURE  OF  THE  CONCEPT, — GENERAL  NAMES. — LANGUAGE 

THE  brief  review  which  we  have  taken  of  the  various  theories 
of  the  concept  will  enable  us  to  see  more  clearly  and  to  define 
more  exactly  its  real  nature  as  a  mental  product,  and  its  re- 
lations to  the  objects  from  which  it  is  formed,  and  to  which  it 
is  applied.  Every  false  or  defective  theory  is  founded  upon  some 
important  truth.  The  consideration  of  defective  or  exaggerated 
theories  is  most  useful  in  enabling  us  to  ascertain  the  truth  in  all 
its  relations,  and  thus  to  develop  it  completely,  as  well  as  to 
distinguish  it  from  errors  of  excess  or  defect.  In  the  light  of 
our  historical  sketch,  we  observe : 

§  205.     1.  The   concept,   as   a  mental   object  or 
product,  is  to  be  distinguished  from  the  mental  act  by  acteristics  of 
which  it  is  originally  produced  or  recalled.     Such  an 
act  is  necessarily  individual.    The  concept  produced  or  recalled  is 
general. 

2.  The  concept,  as  a  mental  product  and  a  mental  object, 
implies  that  the  distinction  of  individual  beings  and  their  attributes 
is  accepted  as  real,  and  must  therefore  be  admitted  as  possible. 

15* 


346  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  205. 

3.  The  attribute  must  first  be  known  or  apprehended  as  related 
to  a  thing  or  being.     It  is  always  held  by  the  mind  as  attributable 
to  or  predicable  of  some  being  or  thing.     Its  import,  or  what  is» 
thought  of  by  the  mind,  is  not  the  being  as  such,  but  the  being 
as  related,  or  the  being  together  with  a  something  related  to  it. 

4.  The  attribute  thus   related,    is  next  viewed  in  the  relation 
of   similarity  to   other    individual    attributes,   constituted    and 
known  like  itself.     When  the  individual  red  is  compared  with 
other  individual  reds,  there  is  added  to  its  import  its  likeness  to 
each  and  all  of  these. 

5.  The  use   of  the  concept  thus   formed   to   classify   objects 
enlarges  its  meaning  still  further.     The  capacity  of  the  concept 
to  be  a  classifier,  arises  from  two  circumstances :    the  fact  that 
the  attribute  which  is  its  germ,  is  common  to  more  or  fewer 
individual   beings,  and   the  fact  that  these  attributes  are  dis- 
tributed in  gradation.     Whenever  it  happens  that  one  attribute, 
as  red,  belongs  to  more  beings  than  another  attribute,  as  sour ; 
then  the  red  may  denote  the  larger  class — i.  e.,  the  genus;  and 
the  sour,  the  smaller  or  subordinate  class — i.  e.,  the  species.    Sour, 
in  such  a  case,  may  be  the  differentia  of  the  species — the  sour- 
reds.     If  oval  were  universally  present  with  the  species  sour-reds, 
it  might  be  a  property ;  if  hirsute  were  sometimes  present  and 
sometimes  absent,  it  would  be  an  accident  of  the  same  species. 
The  application  of  any  attribute  in  all  or  any  of  these  class- 
relations,   obviously  adds   to   its   import.     When   a   concept  is 
used  to  classify,  an  additional  relation  is  thereby  taken  up  into 
its  meaning,  and  this  meaning  is  thereby  so  much  enlarged. 

We  distinguish  what  may  be  called  generalization — the  use 
of  the  concept  as  general  or  as  common  to  more  or  fewer  indi- 
viduals, from  generification — the  arrangement  of  these  indi- 
viduals into  higher  and  lower  classes.  Generification  simply 
recognizes  the  fact  that  these  concepts  are  distributed  in  gradation, 
some  belonging  to  more  and  others  to  fewer  individuals,  and  that 
consequently  these  are  classed  according  to  their  extent  into  genera 
and  species.  The  process  and  the  product  in  the  second  case, 
both  imply  and  are  built  upon  the  process  and  product  in  the 
first.  In  the  first,  we  bring  the  individual  under  the  general,  by 
the  direct  act  of  forming  the  general  from  the  individual  in  the 
way  described.  We  know  the  individual  under  this  concept  01 


§  206.  NATURE   OF  THE  CONCEPT.  347 

general  name.  In  the  second,  we  perform  the  reflex  act  of 
employing  the  general  to  divide  all  the  individuals  to  which 
it  belongs  into  classes  as  wider  and  narrower,  or  higher  or 
lower. 

§  206.     6.  The  mind,  whenever  it  uses  a  general 
term  intelligently,  must  understand  or  conceive  the 


i  •   i       1     i  -,     '  i-i        /»  ,.v        and  nominalist 

import  which  belongs  to  it  in  some  or  all  01  the  are  both  right. 
particulars  which  we  have  enumerated.  We  do  not 
intend  that  the  mind  consciously  distinguishes  and  dwells  upon 
each  of  these  relations,  but  that,  in  forming  and  applying  such 
terms,  it  must  in  some  sense  have  recognized  them  all.  The 
question  in  dispute  between  the  different  parties  is,  what  object 
the  mind  thinks  of  or  has  before  itself  when  it  uses  general 
terms.  Our  previous  analysis  has,  we  think,  established  that  it 
thinks  of  all  these  thought-relations,  and  that  they  all  enter  into 
the  distinctive  import  or  meaning  of  the  concept  as  such.  The 
conceptualist  is  right,  if  what  he  contends  for  is  that  the  mind 
must  impliedly  have  formed  a  concept  of  one  or  more  generalized 
attributes,  as  often  as  it  employs  a  general  term.  If  the  nomi- 
nalist contends  that  the  concept  is  only  a  general  name  —  i.  e.,  a 
name  which  the  mind  applies  to  many  objects  —  he  is  manifestly 
in  the  wrong.  What  the  mind  considers,  is  not  the  name,  but 
the  meaning  or  import  of  the  name. 

7.  The  nominalist  is  right  when  he  urges  that  the  mind  cannot 
conceive  or  acquire  knowledge  of  the  import  of  any  concept, 
except  by  means  of  some  individual  example  of  the  qualities  or 
relations  which  it  includes.  We  cannot  know  what  single 
sensible  attributes  signify,  as  red,  sweet,  smooth,  etc.,  without  the 
actual  experience  of  the  sensation  which  each  occasions,  or  of 
one  that  is  analogous.  So  is  it  with  the  concepts  of  simple  acts 
and  states  of  the  soul,  as  to  perceive,  to  imagine,  4o  love,  to  choose. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  concepts  that  are  clearly  complex,  as 
house,  tent,  knife,  tree,  horse,  meadow,  mountain,  valley,  township, 
legislature,  authority,  wealth,  value,  rent,  wages,  feudalism,  civiliza- 
tion. Of  all  these  concepts,  the  elements  must  first  have  been 
made  intelligible  to  the  mind  in  some  concrete  example  —  i.  e.,  by 
,  being  observed,  experienced,  or  thought,  in  some  individual  being 
or  agent. 

We  cannot  know  a  quality  or  qualities,  a  relation  or  relations, 


348  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §206. 

except  as  exemplified  in  some  individual  being  or  thing,  for  the 
reason  that  these  can  neither  exist  nor  be  known  except  as  belong- 
ing to  beings  or  things.  We  cannot  know  what  red  is,  except  by 
the  inspection  of  something  red  ;  what  imagining  or  remembering 
are,  except  as  an  individual  spirit  imagines  or  remembers  ;  what 
equality,  identity,  height,  or  depth  are,  except  as  some  object  is 
known  as  equal  to  another  or  identical  with  itself,  or  as  high  or 
low  as  compared  with  another. 

The  theory  of  the  nominalist  also  finds  ready  acceptance,  be- 
cause names  are  so  prominent  and  efficient  in  aiding  thought. 
Experience  teaches  that,  without  the  help  of  names  the  mind 
makes  little  progress  in  forming  or  applying  its  concepts.  The 
use  of  language,  and  of  spoken  language  even,  is  found  to  be 
almost  essential  to  successful  thought.  Without  language,  the 
discriminations  of  attributes  are  few,  the  generalizations  are 
narrow  and  limited,  the  power  to  enter  into  and  receive  the 
thoughts  of  others  is  almost  dormant. 

—  Many  have  gone  so  far  as  to  conclude  that,  without  words — 
i.  e.,  names — we  cannot  think  at  all.  Experience  with  deaf- 
mutes,  who  have  acquired  little  even  of  the  language  of  signs, 
disproves  this  extreme  conclusion.  These  show,  by  their  actions, 
that  they  generalize — i.  e.,  form  concepts — to  a  limited  extent. 
They  classify  and  arrange  observations,  they  analyze  and  com- 
pare attributes,  they  apply  principles  in  deduction  and  infer  them 
from  data.  But  while  these  facts  show  that  it  is  not  impossible  to 
think  without  names,  they  also  prove  conclusively  that  without 
such  aid,  it  is  impossible  to  think  with  much  effect.  As  soon  as 
they  learn  to  form  and  use  names  by  the  mastery  of  signs  and 
written  language,  their  power  of  thought  is  greatly  quickened, 
and  their  stock  of  concepts  is  rapidly  increased.  But  the  lan- 
guage of  the  eye  alone,  which  is  the  only  language  at  their 
command,  is  immeasurably  below  the  language  of  the  ear  in  the 
fineness  and  variety  of  its  material,  as  well  as  in  its  capacity  for 
ready  assimilation  and  recall.  Still,  the  surprising  acquisitions 
made  by  deaf-mutes,  in  spite  of  all  the  disadvantages  under 
which  they  suffer,  decisively  prove  that  the  mind  is  not  re- 
stricted to  any  one  kind  of  material  out  of  which  to  form  for 
itself  a  language;  that  words,  in  whatever  form,  are  only  the 
signs  of  thought,  and  are  not  essential  to  thought  itself. 


§207.  NATURE  OF   THE  CONCEPT.  349 

§  207.      8.  The  truth  that  every  concept  is  capable 
of  being  referred  to  an  individual  thing  or  image, 
and  every  individual  or  image  can  be  thought  into  a 
concept,  reconciles  the  strife  between  the  conceptualist  and  the 
nominalist. 

The  conceptualist,  in  insisting  that  the  concept  must  ignore 
and  neglect  the  individual  and  its  characteristics,  often  seems  to 
overlook  the  dependence  of  the  concept  upon  the  individual 
thing  or  image  as  the  originator  of  its  materials,  and  the  ex- 
plainer of  its  import.  Locke  says,  positively,  "  the  general  idea 
of  a  triangle "  "  must  be  neither  oblique,  nor  rectangle,  neither 
equilateral,  equicrural,  nor  scalenon,  but  all  and  none  of  these  at 
once."  "In  effect  it  is  ...  an  idea  in  which  some  parts  of 
several  different  and  inconsistent  ideas  are  put  together."  The 
nominalist  asserts  that  the  only  ideas  which  we  can  frame  or 
mental  objects  which  we  can  think  of,  are  individual.  Bishop 
Berkeley  insists  :  "  The  idea  of  man  that  I  frame  to  myself  must 
be  either  of  a  white,  or  a  black  or  a  tawny,  a  straight  or  a 
crooked,  a  tall,  or  a  low  or  a  middle-sized  man ;  "  plainly  imply- 
ing that  we  can  form  no  other  thought  of  man  than  of  one 
possessing  these  and  other  individual  characteristics.  And  yet  he 
concedes  that,  "An  idea,  which,  considered  in  itself,  is  particular, 
becomes  general  by  being  made  to  represent  or  stand  for  all 
other  particular  ideas  of  the  same  sort."  But  how  the  indivi- 
dual can  represent  particular  ideas,  he  does  not  explain,  and 
seems  never  to  have  considered. 

This  remark  brings  the  point  in  dispute  to  a  distinct  issue,  in 
the  questions,  "  How  can  one  individual  represent  other  indivi- 
duals ?  Or,  How  can  the  individual  explain  and  illustrate  the 
general  ?  A  concept  is  general,  an  image  is  individual,  how  can 
you  think  the  one  into  the  other?"  The  sides  of  every  indivi- 
dual triangle  must  have  a  definite  length,  and  the  angles  a  de- 
finite measurement  and  relations.  Every  individual  man  has  in 
like  manner  a  definite  height,  form,  color,  etc.  We  think  these 
into  concepts,  not  by  overlooking  the  individual  relations  of 
each,  but  by  considering  their  likeness  to  similar  attributes  in 
other  objects;  the  sides  and  angles,,  not  in  their  individual  re- 
lations, but  simply  as  sides  and  angles — i.  e.,  as  bounding  a 
figure  and  as  being  contained  within  two  lines.  We  do  not  so 


350  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  208. 

much  leave  any  thing  out  of  view,  as  we  add  the  new  relations  of 
likeness  which  the  formation  of  the  concept  involves.  An  object 
viewed  without  thought-relations,  is  an  image.  An  image  with 
these  relations  added,  becomes  a  concept.  It  is  true  that,  when  we 
think  the  image  into  a  concept,  we  give  special  attention  to  fewer 
elements ;  but  we  need  not  overlook  or  oi^-it*  any  in  regarding 
these  few.  Least  of  all  do  we  introduce  into  the  concept  elements 
that  are  inconsistent  or  incompatible,  and  conceive — i.  e.,  image — a 
triangle  which  is  neither  rectangular,  acute,  or  obtuse,  as  Locke 
asserts  is  necessary  and  as  Berkeley  objects  is  impossible. 

It  is  curious  and  instructive  to  notice  here,  that 

Different   ima-  •  ,-•  i  •   i     i  i 

ges  illustrate  every  man  images  the  concepts  which  he  employs  or 
cSpt.8an  '"  hears  of,  by  examples  that  are  peculiar  to  himself, 
and  which  are  derived  from  his  individual  experience 
or  observation.  If  his  experience  or  education  is  marked  by 
very  striking  peculiarities,  the  concrete  examples  suggested  to  him 
by  every  concept  and  name  will  be  as  peculiar.  An  Esquimaux, 
a  Chinese,  and  a  European,  would  picture  very  different  objects 
to  the  imagination,  on  hearing  or  reading  the  words  state-,  legisla- 
tion, wealth,  money,  wages,  civilization,  fashion ;  and  even  the  more 
concrete  terms,  house,  city,  ship,  oar,  sail,  knife,  feast,  procession, 
township,  and  meadow.  And  yet  their  concepts  denoted  by  these 
words  are  substantially  the  same,  inasmuch  as  the  more  important 
and  essential  relations  of  objects  are  common,  however  greatly 
their  individual  characteristics  may  differ. 

This  circumstance  explains  hbw  there  may  be  a  community 
of  thoughts,  with  a  very  diverse  experience.  The  nature  of 
things  and  the  nature  of  man  remains  unchanged.  The  same 
powers,  laws,  and  ends  are  perpetually  reappearing,  the  same 
principles  are  continually  illustrated,  under  forms  the  most  un- 
like. 

§  208.    9.   The  realist  emphasises  the  truth  that 

The  truth  rep- 
resented by  re-  every  real  concept  should  suggest  or  express  some 

one  or  more  of  the  essential  properties  and  unchanging 
laws  of  individual  beings.  He  is  not  content  with  the  view  of 
the  nominalist,  who  makes  the  general  term  a  mere  class-name  for 
the  simple  convenience  of  language,  nor  with  the  view  of  the 
conceptualist,  who  regards  the  concept  as  a  chance-assemblage 
of  attributes.  He  insists  that  concepts  proper  ought  to  signify  and 


§  208.  NATURE  OF   THE   CONCEPT.  351 

represent  those  objects  and  those  attributes  only  which  are  per- 
manent and  constantly  occurring.  This  is  the  truth  that  has 
given  currency  and  influence  to  the  realistic  theory,  in  spite  of 
the  extravagant  and  metaphorical  language,  and  the  insuffi- 
cient arguments  by  which  it  has  been  stated  and  enforced. 

All  individual  objects  of  nature  exist  under  constant  con- 
ditions, and  are  produced  by  permanent  forces,  according  to 
fixed  laws  and  ends.  These  constituents,  conditions,  causes,  laws, 
and  ends  of  individual  objects  are  often  called  their  inner  truth, 
their  essential  nature,  their  true  meaning,  their  real  and  permanent 
being.  The  individual  mass  of  earth  or  ore,  the  single  crystal, 
leaf,  herb,  tree,  fish,  bird,  reptile,  quadruped,  and  man,  have 
accidental  relations  of  position,  form,  size,  color,  or  taste ;  they 
exist  here  or  there  for  a  longer  or  shorter  period  of  time,  but 
these  relations  are  of  little  importance  for  the  higher  ends 
of  knowledge  and  of  practice.  It  is  to  reach  and  to  impart  the 
knowledge  of  permanent  elements,  causes,  laws,  and  designs,  that 
concepts  are  formed,  classes  are  arranged,  and  names  are  given. 
As  we  have  seen  already,  many  of  the  earliest  classifications  and 
concepts  are  rude  and  unsatisfactory  for  scientific  purposes, 
because  they  are  founded  upon  attributes  that  are  superficial  and 
narrow  in  their  significance  and  indicate  few  or  none  of  the  per- 
manent elements  and  laws  of  being.  These  are  gradually  out- 
grown and  displaced  by  others  which  as  soon  as  discovered  sug- 
gest more  comprehensive  agencies  and  laws. 

No  better  illustration  can  be  adduced  of  the  differ- 

,.  PT/Y«  i  •      1        r>  11  ^e  classifica- 

ing  import  ot  different  kinds  01  concepts  and  classes,  tions  of  bo- 
than  is  furnished  by  the  history  of  botany.  Linnseus 
hit  upon  the  convenient  expedient  of  classing  the  different  in- 
dividual plants  by  the  number  of  the  stamina  that  appear  in 
their  flowers  and  of  subdividing  the  classes  into  orders  by  the 
number  of  pistils.  The  device  was  convenient,  because  all 
plants  have  flowers,  and  the  number  of  the  stamens  and  pistils  is 
in  most  cases  constant,  and  presents  a  ready  means  for  their 
division  and  subdivision  into  classes  and  sub-classes.  To  a  cer- 
tain extent  this  division  signified  something — so  far  at  least  as 
the  number  of  stamens  and  pistils  was  found  to  indicate  other 
common  characteristics  of  importance,  and  seemed  to  point  to 
deeper  qualities  and  laws.  But  this  was  by  no  means  universally 


352  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  208. 

the  case.  The  classes  and  orders  that  were  founded  upon  the 
number  of  these  organs,  were  concepts  of  little  interest,  because 
they  signified  nothing  in  respect  to  the  structure  or  the  germina- 
tion, the  growth  or  the  habits,  the  flower  or  the  fruit.  Hence 
the  Linnean  system  was  abandoned  for  a  system  of  classes  and  of 
nomenclature,  which  was  founded  on  indications  of  greater  prac- 
tical and  scientific  significance. 

The  mistakes  of  the  realists  have  been  twofold.  They  have,  both 
in  language  and  thought,  confounded  the  subjective  concept, 
which  is  a  purely  psychological  product,  with  its  objective  cor- 
relate— the  related  elements  which  it  represents  or  indicates; 
and  have  often  called  both  by  the  same  name,  and  invested  them 
with  the  same  properties.  They  have  used  a  highly  metaphoric 
terminology  to  express  the  nature  of  universals,  and  their  rela- 
tions to  individual  beings.  The  ideas  of  Plato  and  the  Pla- 
tonists,  present  from  eternity  in  the  Divine  mind ;  the  forms  of 
the  Aristotelians,  incapable  of  existing  apart  from  matter,  yet 
essential  to  every  material  thing  and  species ;  the  substantial  and 
essential  forms  of  the  schoolmen,  as  well  as  their  universals  antb 
rem  and  a  parte  rei ;  the  forms  and  ideas  of  Kant ;  the  notion 
of  Hegel, — self-moving  from  the  empty  yet  posited  nothing,  aud 
self-developed  by  constant  growth  into  all  the  fulness  of  the  idea, 
with  a  capacity  claimed  for  this  notion  to  pass  into  the  objective, 
giving  the  world  of  material  being,  and  then  to  return  to  itself 
so  as  by  self-conscious  affirmation  and  distinction  to  blossom  into 
spirit  and  thus  complete  the  circle  of  absolute  knowledge ; — all 
these  are  examples  of  the  exaggerations  and  personifications  of 
realism  in  its  endeavors  to  express  a  most  important  truth. 

This  subject  has,  of  late,  assumed  a  very  great  interest  and 
importance  among  naturalists,  in  connection  with  the  question  of 
the  permanence  of  species  in  the  natural  and  vegetable  kingdoms. 
Certain  naturalists  contend  that  none  of  the  so-called  species  are 
permanent,  either  in  the  plan  of  nature,  or  its  actual  divisions  ; 
that  every  one  of  them  has  been  developed  by  evolution  from 
previously  existing  types,  which  owed  their  form  and  apparent 
permanence  to  certain  conditions  or  laws  that  were  but  temporary 
in  their  action  and  transitory  in  their  results.  In  this  way  Dar- 
win, (Origin  of  Species,  etc.,}  Huxley,  and  others,  reason  from 
certain  varieties  produced  within  species,  that  all  species  existing 


§  209.  NATURE   OF   THE   CONCEPT.  353 

at  present,  have  been  themselves  developed.  Herbert  Spencer, 
by  a  broader  application  of  the  same  general  assumption,  makes 
every  type  of  existence,  both  material  and  spiritual,  to  have  been 
developed /from  lower  forms,  which  are  held  in  being  till  forms 
still  higher  and  more  exalted  shall  displace  them.  On  the  other 
hand,  Owen,  Agassiz,  and  Dana  find  that  the  classifications  of 
science  must  assume  a  more  permanent  and  firmer  foundation  for 
the  species  which-  they  accept,  in  the  action  of  permanent  forces 
after  the  fixed  types  that  are  contemplated  in  the  unchanging 
plan  and  the  manifested  thoughts  of  God.  In  this  assumption 
they  express  the  scientific  truth  of  the  bold  metaphors  of  Plato, 
who  taught  that  by  definition  and  division,  we  find  in  the  tem- 
porary and  phenomenal  those  eternal  and  real  ideas  which  exist  in 
unsoiled  and  unalloyed  purity  in  the  mind  of  the  Deity  alone. 
(Cf.  Agassiz,  Essay  on  Classification.) 
§  209.  10.  The  reasons  why  language  aids  our 

.        _  .,  *  Value  of  nam 

thinking  are  the  following.  ing  and  of  ian 

(a.)  The  name  is  both  a  sensuous  and  an  individual 
object.    It  presents  to  our  sense-perceptions  a  definite  object,  which 
we  can  readily  evoke,  distinctly  apprehend,  and  easily  and  unmis- 
takably repeat.   What  it  represents,  is  indeed  abstract  and  general, 
but  the  name  itself  is  an  individual  object  of  sense-perception. 

The  word  addresses  a  single  sense,  the  ear  or  the  eye  singly,  or 
the  two  combined.  In  either  case  it  is  ready  to  appear  when 
called  for.  The  winged  word  flies  to  our  aid,  and  the  ghostly 
product  of  thought  is  at  once  embodied  before  the  senses. 

(6.)  The  word  is  the  sign,  not  of  the  whole  of  the  individual 
thing  or  being  which  might  image  or  exemplify  the  concept,  b,it 
of  a  portion  of  its  attributes  or  relations.  In  consequence,  words 
present  a  greater  variety  and  refinement  of  objects  than  exist  in 
the  world  of  nature.  The  words  red  fruit,  acid-fruit,  currant, 
cherry-currant,  may  all  be  imaged  or  exemplified  by  the  same 
sense-object,  viz.,  the  fruit  before  us.  Red  stands  for  a  single  one 
of  its  properties ;  fruit,  and  hence  red  fruit,  for  several ;  cur- 
rant, for  more  ;  and  cherry-currant,  for  even  more.  So  the  terms 
company,  organized  company,  and  legislature,  may  all  be 
exemplified  by  the  same  body  of  individuals  discerned  by  the 
senses  while  each  of  the  words  represents  more  or  fewer  of  its 
attributes  or  relations. 


354  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  210. 

To  fix  and  represent  a  single  attribute  by  a  word,  is  also  neces- 
sary for  the  service  of  communication  which  language  performs. 
Another  mind  could  not  be  brought  to  direct  its  attention  to  the 
attribute  and  property  which  we  with  difficulty  discern,  unless 
the  attribute  were  represented  by  a  name.  This,  however,  does 
not  weaken,  but  rather  confirms  the  service  of  the  word  to  thought, 
in  rendering  its  acquisitions  permanent  and  ready  for  use. 

(c.)  Names  enable  us  to  add  to  our  stock  of  logically  depend- 
ent concepts.  One  concept  is  dependent  upon  and  grows  out  of 
another.  One  concept,  when  formed,  enables  us  to  form  another, 
and  is  often  the  essential  condition  of  the  existence  of  the  second. 

(d.)  Names  aid  most  efficiently  in  rapid  thinking,  by  sparing 
us  the  necessity  of  dwelling  on  the  entire  import  of  the  word  be- 
fore us..  In  conversation  or  rapid  discourse,  as  well  as  in  reading 
by  the  eye,  only  enough  of  this  import  is  attended  to  to  satisfy 
the  present  occasion — all  else  is  omitted.  Even  whole  sentences, 
when  they  are  familiar,  are  received  as  the  signs  of  single  con- 
cepts or  relations,  viz. :  those  which  the  present  occasion  requires. 

This  can  only  happen  when  the  language  is  familiar  to  the  eye 
and  the  ear,  so  that,  as  the  eye  and  the  ear  each  catch  enough  to 
identify  the  word  or  phrase,  the  mind  also  catches  enough  of  the 
import  to  satisfy  the  present  occasion.  Were  not  the  words 
addressed  to  the  ssnses,  and  capable  of  rapid  formation  and  re- 
ception, they  could  not  serve  in  this  rapid  application. 

§  210.    11.  The  analysis  which  has  been  given  of 
The  relation  of  foe  nature  of  the  concept  and  its  relations  to  the  in- 

Bymbolic  to  m- 

kn°w"  Dividual  object  or  image,  explains  more  exactly  the 
relation  of  what  is  called  symbolic,  mediate,  or  logical 
knowledge,  to  that  which  is  intuitive,  immediate,  and  experimental. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  this  distinction  in  a  general  way. 
We  return  to  it  again,  for  the  sake  of  greater  exactness.  Know- 
ledge by  concepts  is  symbolic,  mediate  and  logical.  Knowledge 
by  direct  apprehension,  whether  in  connection  with  consciousness 
or  perception,  is  called  intuitive. 

When  I  perceive  a  sense-object,  as  a  man,  a  house,  or  tree,  or 
am  conscious  of  an  individual  state  of  spiritual  activity,  or  dis- 
cern with  the  mind's  eye  a  mathematical  figure,  I  know  intui- 
tively each  of  these  objects.  When  I  recognize  either  as  belong- 
ing to  a  class,  or  give  to  either  a  name,  I  am  said  to  know  it  by 


§  210.  NATURE  OF  THE   CONCEPT.  355 

means  of  the  concept  or  name ;  and  these  concepts  or  names  are 
said  to  be  the  media  or  symbols,  which  I  employ  in  knowing.  This 
distinction,  as  thus  stated,  originated  with  Leibnitz,  and  much 
has  been  made  of  it  by  later  thinkers,  as  Kant  and  other  Ger- 
man philosophers,  as  also  by  Hamilton,  Mansel,  and  Morell 
rjnong  the  English. 

The  grounds  for  this  distinction  have  been  explained  already  in 
the  positions,  that  every  concept  supposes  an  individual  concrete, 
either  real  or  imaginary,  in  which  it  is  exemplified,  and  no  person 
can  conceive  the  import  of  the  concept  except  as  he  resorts  to 
this  concrete  for  interpretation  and  explanation.  When  I  pro- 
nounce such  words  as  white,  red,  sweet,  sour,  etc.,  I  presuppose 
that  the  person  to  whom  I  address  them  has  known  by  expe- 
rience, i.  e.,  by  intuition,  what  they  signify  ;  that  he  has  either 
seen  these  colors  and  tasted  these  tastes,  or  those  which  are  in  some 
respects  like  them.  If  he  has  had  no  intuitive  or  analogous  ex- 
perience of  them,  my  words  convey  to  him  no  meaning.  The 
same  is  true  of  all  the  so-called  simple  ideas  of  Locke,  which  are 
the  constituent  elements  of  all  those  which  are  complex. 

It  should  be  remembered,  however,  that  language  may  be  used 
either  for  philosophical  thought  on  the  one  hand,  or  pictorial  and 
emotional  effect  on  the  other.  In  the  one  case,  the  mind  is  occu- 
pied with  the  more  abstract  and  general  relations  of  objects.  In 
the  other,  those  which  are  broader  and  more  obvious  are  em- 
ployed, often  solely  for  the  excitement  and  gratification  of  the 
emotions.  In  both  cases,  use  must  be  made  of  the  objects  and 
images  of  individual  experience.  But  in  the  first,  the  relations 
concerned  are  less  dependent  upon  the  individual  images  which 
happen  to  be  suggested,  because  to  convey  or  awaken  general 
relations  is  the  chief  end.  The  individual  examples  by  which 
each  individual  hearer  or  reader  verifies  or  illustrates  these  con- 
cepts and  their  relations,  is  of  less  importance,  provided  he  under- 
stands their  import. 

But  even  here  intuition  is  far  better  than  symbolic  knowledge-, 
rather  should  it  be  said,  intuition  with  thought  is  far  better  than 
symbolic  knowledge  without  intuition.  The  most  careful  defini- 
tion of  a  mountain,  the  ocean-surf,  a  cataract,  a  giraffe,  a  palm-tree, 
may  convey  impressions  far  less  satisfactory,  and  far  less  accu- 
rate, than  the  inspection  of  a  moment  might  furnish,  provided 


356  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  210. 

the  inspection  leads  to  thought — i.  e.,  to  the  formation  or  verifi- 
cation of  concepts.  With  the  concrete  before  us,  our  concepts 
are  more  exact,  because  we  see  for  ourselves.  The  concrete  also 
furnishes  the  material  for  any  new  concepts  which  we  ourselves 
may  form  directly  from  their  objects. 

The  defects  of  mere  words  and  of  the  images  whi%ch  they  awaken 
in  comparison  with  actual  intuition  are  still  more  striking  when 
the  objects  are  described  rather  than  defined,  and  for  the  purposes 
of  vivid  impression  and  excited  feeling.  One  is  forcibly  im- 
pressed with  these  defects,  when  he  reads  a  description  of  a  scene 
in  nature  with  which  he  is  personally  familiar ;  especially  if  he 
reads  it  with  the  scene  actually  before  him.  However  graphic 
or  complete  the  description  may  be,  it  is  but  a  lifeless  outline 
when  compared  with  the  fulness  and  vividness  of  the  reality,  or 
with  the  throng  of  images  which  are  awakened  in  the  memory. 
The  impressions  received  from  words  by  one  who  has  never  wit- 
nessed the  reality,  are  but  as  thin  and  pallid  shadows,  when  con- 
trasted with  full  and  glowing  intuitions.  The  most  exact  descrip- 
tion of  the  falls  of  Niagara  is  a  very  different  thing  to  one 
who  has  recently  seen  the  cataract,  or  who  reads  with  his  eye 
open  upon  the  scene,  from  what  it  can  be  to  one  who  has  never 
seen  its  wonders.  If  a  person  has  never  seen  any  waterfall,  it  is 
still  more  impotent  to  instruct  the  mind. 

These  facts  bring  to  light  very  distinctly  the  truth  that  lan- 
guage operates  to  a  very  great  extent  by  suggesting  the  images 
and  remembrances  which  have  been  gained  by  the  experience 
and  observation  of  each  individual  person.  Besides  the  direct 
office  of  instructing  the  mind,  it  serves  to  awaken  a  multitude  of 
kindred  images  and  facts  which  are  suggested  by  them.  Words 
which  to  one  are  dead  and  meaningless  are  to  another  full  of 
life  and  import.  Words  meant  only  in  kindness  may  awaken 
images  of  sorrow  and  pain.  The  reader  of  poetry  must  have 
somewhat  of  a  poet's  power  to  receive  and  re-create.  The  stu- 
dent of  philosophy  must  have  something  of  a  philosopher's 
reach  and  insight,  to  understand  and  judge  what  he  reads. 

There  is  a  large  class  of  facts  and  truths,  as  well  of  scenes  and 
events,  to  which  language  can  do  but  scant  justice.  These  are 
those  to  which  the  facts  and  events  which  we  know  and  have 
experienced  are  only  remotely  analogous.  Language  is  feeble 


§  210.  NATURE   OF   THE   CONCEPT.  357 

to  convey  to  the  inhabitant  of  a  plain  or  a  prairie,  the  impressions 
of  mountain  scenery ;  to  the  stranger  to  woods,  the  grandeur  of 
an  aboriginal  forest ;  to  one  who  has  always  lived  inland,  the 
glory  and  the  beauty  of  the  ocean. 

When  the  means  of  finding  analogies  are  still  more  scanty, 
the  communication  by  language  is  still  less  successful.  How 
curiously  do  we  endeavor  to  anticipate  what  may  be  the  scenes 
and  objects  to  which  another  life  may  introduce  us  !  But  how 
feeble  is  our  power  to  imagine  these,  because  our  stock  of  analoga 
is  so  scanty  !  We  desire  most  earnestly  that  description  in  lan- 
guage may  convey  to  us  the  desired  information.  But  language 
may  be  to  a  large  extent  inadequate,  because  all  the  images  of 
which  language  can  avail  itself  must  of  necessity  be  taken  from 
the  scenes  of  the  present  state  of  being. 

It  is  sometimes  asserted  that  the  Infinite  Spirit  can  have  no  common  relations 
with  the  finite, — that  all  our  conceptions  of  the  infinite,  being  finite,  must  there- 
fore be  inadequate  and  unworthy ;  and  that,  consequently,  all  attempts  of  language 
to  convey  knowledge  from  the  higher  to  the  lower  must  be  forever  impossible, 
because  the  media — i.  e.,  the  images  and  concepts — must  both  be  finite.  This 
is  urged  against  the  possibility  of  any  communication  from  God  through  the 
forms  of  finite  nature,  or  by  the  media  of  human  speech.  It  may  be  granted 
that, to  the  mind,  in  its  studies  of  nature,  the  images  that  are  suggested  or  pre- 
sented, and  the  language  founded  on  such  images,are  wholly  inadequate  to  express 
the  divine,  because  they  are  finite ;  it  may  be  granted  even  that  the  concepts 
of  spiritual  relations  must  necessarily  be  interpreted  and  illustrated  by  images 
taken  from  finite  objects,  and  that  so  far  there  are  essential  defects  in  all  our  imagi- 
nations concerning  God :  yet  it  may  remain  true  that  there  are  relations  of  simi- 
larity and  analogy  between  the  finite  and  the  infinite  spirit,  which  render  it  pos- 
sible that  the  one  should  be  understood  by  the  other,  and  that  the  language  which 
describes  the  one  to  the  other  should  convey  actual  truth. 

The  infinitude  of  God  may  not  exclude  personality,  which  itself  establishes  a 
likeness  between  man  and  God.  Personality  may  involve  similarity  of  know- 
ledge in  respect  to  all  the  higher  relations  of  truth.  A  common  sympathy  may 
rest  upon  a  similarity  of  emotional  capacities,  while  similarity  in  the  still  higher 
endowment  of  a  personal  will,  may  render  possible  a  similar  moral  goodness. 
These  likenesses  or  analogies,  may  coexist  with  the  greatest  disparities  in  every 
other  respect.  The  one  being  may  be  infinite  and  the  Creator;  the  other  may  bo 
finite  and  created ;  and  yet  the  One,  by  indications  through  his  works  and  com- 
munications by  his  word,  may  make  himself  truly,  if  not  perfectly,known.  The 
imagination  of  the  finite  may  be  inadequate  to  picture  the  infinite,  and  yet  the 
thinking  of  the  finite  may  apprehend  the  relations  by  which  the  infinite  first 
thinks  and  therefore  creates,  and  in  creating  manifests  himself  to  the  created. 


358  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §211. 

CHAPTER  V. 

JUDGMENT,   AND   THE   PROPOSITION. 

§  211.  The  processes  already  considered,  and  which 
are  involved  in  forming  and  applying  notions,  are 
mfSft&wu-  alike  in  this ;  they  are  all  acts  of  judgment.  The 
mind  cannot  know, — much  less  can  it  think,  without 
judging.  To  think,  is  to  judge.  Even  in  forming  or  evolving 
its  notions — that  is,  in  providing  itself  with  the  materials  for  what 
arc  usually  called  acts  of  judgment — the  mind  must  judge. 

The  truth  of  this  assertion  is  evident  from  the  following  con- 
siderations. 

(1.)  It  is  evident  from  an  analysis  of  the  act  itself.  If  we 
retrace  the  steps  which  we  have  taken  in  forming  concepts, 
we  find  that  we  cannot  know  attributes,  except  as  we  affirm 
them  of  individual  beings.  An  attribute  without  a  being 
is  inconceivable  in  thought  and  impossible  in  fact.  Sup- 
pose we  meet  with  a  series  of  unknown  and  unnamed  objects, 
each  of  which  has  some  attribute  or  property,  that  is  unfamiliar 
and  even  without  a  name :  or  suppose  the  attribute  to  be 
familiar  and  nameable,  while  the  objects  are  unnamed.  We 
think  and  say  of  each  of  these  objects,  it  is  yellow,  red,  or  green. 
In  thinking  or  saying  thus  we  in  fact  perform  a  process  which  can 
only  be  represented  by  some  proposition,  one  element  of  which  is 
affirmed  of  another :  e.  g.,  x.  is  yellow,  red,  or  green ;  or  if  each  is 
as  yet  unnamed,  x  [individual]  is  y  [general].  The  nearest  and 
best  expression  of  this  act  which  we  find  in  any  form  of  language 
is  the  impersonal  verb,  as,  it  shines,  it  lightens,  it  rains,  in  the  use 
of  which  the  unnamed  being  is  present  to  the  senses,  and  the  at- 
tribute is  judged  or  affirmed  of  it. 

(2.)  It  is  still  further  implied  in  the  truth  already  developed, 
that  every  notion  is  by  its  very  nature  and  essence  relative,  i.  e., 
related  to  individual  objects  or  actually  existing  things. 

(3.)  The  same  is  evident  from  the  consideration  of  the  meaning 
of  names,  or  notions  in  language.   A  name  is  the  verbal  symbol  of 
a  concept  or  notion.    But  to  be  a  name,  it  must  be  a  name  of  some 
object  or  objects ;  some  object  must  be  called  by  it ;  it  must  be  • 
applied  to  some  thing  or  being.    But  these  acts  imply  judgment. 


§  212.  JUDGMENT,   AND  THE   PROPOSITION.  359 

(4.)  It  is  implied  by  the  nature  and  definition  of  knowledge. 
An  act  of  knowledge  has  already  been  shown  to  be  necessarily 
and  universally  an  act  of  judgment,  whether  it  takes  the  form  of 
presentation,  representation,  or  thought.  Every  such  act  implies 
the  apprehension  of  an  object  as  existing ;  and  more,  its  existence 
in  some  relation.  If  it  is  true  that  knowledge  by  perception  and 
memory  implies  judgment,  much  more  does  knowledge  by  thought; 
forasmuch  as  the  general  with  which  thought  has  to  do,  can  by  its 
very  essence  and  nature,  be  only  a  relative  and  a  predicable  entity. 

We  conclude  then  that  wherever  there  is  a  notion,  there  is  an 
implied  act  of  judgment.  Every  such  notion  has  been  formed 
by  judgment,  and  is  capable  of  being  expanded  into  a  judgment. 
It  is  an  organic  thing,  representing  in  its  very  essence  the  act 
which  gave  it  being,  and  capable  of  being  developed  into  similar 
though  more  complex  products.  It  is  like  a  seed,  which  is  a 
miniature  plant,  having  come  from  a  plant  and  being  ready  to 
spring  into  a  plant ;  or  it  is  like  the  cell  which  is  the  organized 
and  organizing  element  of  development  in  vegetable  or  animal  life. 
We  do  not  judge  by  a  mechanical  and  superinduced  act  of  the 
intellect,  which,  finding  two  names  or  notions,  proceeds  to  fasten 
them  together ;  but  it  is  of  the  very  nature  of  the  notion,  that  it 
can  be  applied  or  united  to  some  object.  This  natural  and  neces- 
sary act  of  union  or  synthesis  is  an  act  of  judgment.  The  true 
doctrine  may  be  stated  thus  :  every  concept  is  a  contracted  judg- 
ment ;  every  judgment  is  an  expanded  concept. 

§  212.  The  judgments  by  which  concepts  are  Judgments  are 
formed,  are  called  primary,  and  psychological  judg-.  Scj^r^cal 
ments.  They  are  distinguished  by  the  circumstance 
that  their  subject  is  an  existing  and  individual  tiling.  Judg- 
ments in  which  concepts  are  affirmed  or  denied  of  one  another 
are  secondary  and  logical.  The  secondary,  comparative,  and 
logical  judgments  are  all  founded  on  those  which  are  primary, 
natural,  and  psychological.  To  be  convinced  of  this  truth,  we 
need  only  to  consider  the  expression  of  judgments  in  language, 
and  to  trace  the  order  of  progress  by  which  logical  judgments, 
i.  e.,  judgments  consisting  of  concepts,  come  to  be  reached  and  un- 
derstood. 

The  secondary  judgment,  when  its  subject  is  an  individual  be- 
ing, differs  from  the  primary  in  this,  that  the  subject  is  denoted 


360  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §212. 

by  means  of  a  common  term.  Instead  of  saying  it,  we  say  this 
orange.  If  the  subject  is  a  universal,  as  all  oranges,  the  mind 
gives  the  result  of  its  observations  or  inductions,  by  using  the 
concept  in  its  largest  extent. 

When  purely  mental  entities  are  treated  of,  whether  a  fiction 
of  the  imagination,  as  the  centaur,  or  a  mathematical  construction, 
as  the  triangle,  or  an  abstractum,  as  virtue,  they  are  treated  as 
actually  existing  beings. 

HOW  the  sub-  Tne  fact  has  alrea(ty  been  established,  that  the 
meit°f i*  JUef-  concept,  by  its  very  nature,  contemplates  attributes 
lan"  only  »  anc^  tnat  c01166?*3)  like  man,  human,  humanity, 
so  far  as  their  constituent  attributes  are  concerned, 
stand  for  precisely  the  same  content  of  attributes.  When  they 
are  expressed  in  language,  however,  man  and  human  differ  in 
this,  that  the  one  word,  man,  denotes  a  being  to  which  these  at- 
tributes belong,  and  the  other,  human,  denotes  the  attributes 
only.  By  what  process  the  mind  comes  to  be  possessed  of  these 
two  sorts  of  words,  we  need  not  here  inquire.  But  when  it  does 
possess  them,  it  cannot  but  use  them.  Instead  of  thinking  or 
saying,  it  is  yellow,  or,  it  rains,  the  man  says,  orange  is  yellow, 
cloud  rains.  Soon  he  learns  to  say  this  in  three  ways  ;  this  orange 
is  yellow,  some  oranges  are  yellow,  all  oranges  are  yellow,  accord- 
ing as  he  uses  the  general  name  for  one,  a  part,  or  all  of  tho 
beings  for  which  the  orange  stands.  In  order  to  do  this,  he  ap- 
plies special  terms  to  denote  these  three  relations,  viz.,  the  words 
the,  this,  or  one ;  some  \a  few  or  many]  ;  and  all. 

The  fact  that  a  concept  has  the  two  relations  of  extent  and  con- 
tent, fits  it  to  be  used  both  as  the  name  of  one  or  more  indivi- 
duals, and  as  an  attribute  only.  When  a  concept  is  used  to  de- 
note beings,  it  is  used  in  the  relation  of  extent.  When  it  is  used 
to  denote  attributes,  it  is  used  in  the  relation  of  content.  In  the 
secondary  judgment,  a  concept  used  in  its  extent  only  is  employed 
as  the  subject,  taking  the  place  of  the  individual  intuition ;  the 
notion  as  content  is  retained  as  the  predicate :  and  the  natural 
judgment  in  which  only  one  notion  is  used,  becomes  a  secondary 
judgment  in  which  two  notions  appear.  The  two  species  of 
judgment  are,  however,  essentially  one  and  the  same,  inasmuch 
as  both  express  what  is  essentially  involved  in  the  act  of  thinking, 
viz.  •  the  *act  of  affirming  a  concept  of  an  existing  being  or  thing. 


§  214.  JUDGMENT,   AND   THE   PROPOSITION.  361 

§  213.  The  copula  expresses  the  act  of  judging  or  The  gignificap 
affirming,  whatever  is  the  kind  of  judgment  or  the  rela-  ^j«aof  the  cot 
tion  affirmed.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  it  is  or 
is  not  expressed,  it  is  still  present  as  an  element  in  every  judg- 
ment. The  act  of  judgment  is  the  same  whatever  be  its  verbal 
expression,  whether  subject,  predicate  and  copula  are  condensed 
in  a  single  word,  as,  pluit — or  expanded  into  two,  as,  it  rains — or 
into  three,  as,  the  clouds  are  raining. 

The  copula  does  not  require  or  imply  that  there  should  be  an  actually  existing 
material  or  spiritual  thing  or  agent,  of  which  the  attribute  is  affirmed  or  thought. 
The  being  may  be  an  imaginary  being,  as  a  centaur,  or  a  mathematical  entity,  as 
a  triangle,  or  an  abstractum,  as  whiteness,  or  virtue,  or  legislation  ;  and  yet  one  or 
more  attributes  may  be  asserted  or  thought  of  each.  All  that  the  copula  pro- 
perly signifies  is,  that  the  concept  has  this  or  that  attribute,  one  or  many. 
Whether  the  concept  is  of  a  real  being  or  a  thought-being  is  left  to  be  deter- 
mined by  other  sources  of  knowledge.  If  a  centaur  is  spoken  of,  we  know  it  has 
only  imaginary  existence ;  if  a  triangle,  that  it  is  a  mathematical  conception  or 
construction ;  if  virtue  or  legislation,  we  know  we  must  go  back  to  concrete 
beings,  to  find  the  realities  of  which  these  are  abstracts. 

§  214.  It  has  been  established  that  every  notion  is  Classesof  judg. 
a  contracted  judgment  and  every  judgment  is  an  JJ^2*ofJ^; 
expanded  notion,  and  also  that  every  notion  has  two  tent- 
relations — the  relation  of  content  and  the  relation  of  extent.  It 
follows  that  notions  can  be  expanded  into  two  kinds  of  judg- 
ments :  judgments  of  content  and  judgments  of  extent.  Each  of 
these  forms  of  judgment  require  special  illustration. 

We  begin  with  the  Judgment  of  Content.  This  is  the  form  of 
all  original  and  natural  judgments.  It  is  by  a  judgment  of  con- 
tent, i.  <?.,  of  a  common  attribute  or  relation — that  every  notion  is 
originally  formed.  Tn  this  form  judgments  most  frequently  occur 
in  language.  Objects  are  observed  and  their  common  attribute 
or  attributes  are  thought,  i.  e.,  judged,  of  them,  and  the  judgments 
when  expressed  in  words  are  those  propositions  which  abound 
in  every  language.  It  is  only  by  a  reflex  act  that  the  mind  de- 
velops and  employs  judgments  of  extent. 

These  natural  judgments  of  content,  serve  the  purposes  of 
common  life  and  of  common  intercourse.  For  the  ends  and  uses 
of  science  we  need  to  go  further  and  to  employ  propositions  of 
definition.  In  such  propositions  we  assert  not  merely  one  or  more 
attributes  for  information,  but  we  indicate  for  distinction,  the 
16 


362  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  214. 

attributes  which  make  up  or  constitute  the  entire  content.  To 
satisfy  the  ends  of  science  we  must  express  what  is  called  the  whole 
content,  since  if  we  state  only  those  elements  which  are  common 
to  this  concept  and  many  others,  and  omit  one  or  more  that  is 
peculiar,  we  do  not  distinguish  it  from  others.  If  we  define  a  cir- 
cle as  a  curvilinear  figure,  the  circle  is  not  distinguished  from  an 
ellipse.  If  we  define  man  to  be  a  two-legged  and  featherless 
being,  this  is  true  also  of  a  plucked  chicken.  Hence  the  rule  by 
which  we  try  and  determine  a  good  definition  :  The  proposition 
which  expresses  it  must  be  convertible. 

The  content  was  called  by  Aristotle  and  the  Scholastics  the 
essence j  i.  e.,  the  attributes  or  elements  which  make  the  notion  to 
be  what  it  is  as  a  notion. 

Aristotle,  however,  also  recognized  in  the  essence  that  which 
existed  really  and  permanently  in  the  objects  to  which  the  concept 
belonged,. rather  than  the  attributes  themselves  which  constitute 
the  concept.  He  applied  essence  metaphysically  rather  than  logi- 
cally, to  the  objective  correlate  of  the  concept,  rather  than  to  the 
concept  itself  as  an  intellectual  or  purely  subjective  product. 

A  proposition  of  content  properly  expresses  only  logical  truth. 
It  very  often  implies,  however,  real  existence.  Propositions  may 
concern  existing  beings  or  notions  of  beings  to  which  there  is  no 
corresponding  reality.  The  proposition  as  a  definition  only,  ex- 
pands the  content  or  essence  of  the  concept,  without  deciding 
whether  any  corresponding  reality  exists  in  fact.  When  for 
example  we  define  the  centaur  we  give  the  attributes  that  make 
up  the  conception  without  asserting  or  even  knowing  whether  such 
a  being  exists.  When  we  define  a  triangle  we  state  the  essential 
constituents  of  the  concept  produced  by  the  constructive  imagi- 
nation, knowing  that  it  has  no  other  existence.  When  we  define 
man  we  both  define  the  concept  and  believe  the  concept  is  realized 
in  actual  fact.  The  definition  of  centaur  implies  only  thought- 
essence  or  logical  truth.  The  definition  of  man  implies  both 
logical  and  real  truth.  The  copula  is,  in  the  one  case  signifies 
is  defined  as  or  consists  of;  in  the  other — is  defined  as  and  realty 
exists. 

In  very  many  cases  we  readily  interpret  the  meaning  of  the; 
copula  and  the  character  of  the  judgment  and  definition,  by  our 
knowledge  of  the  subject-matter.  In  other  cases  we  have  110 


§  215.  JUDGMENT,   AND   THE   PROPOSITION.  363 

such  knowledge  as  qualifies  us  to  determine  whether  the  defi- 
nition is  really  true,  as  well  as  logically  consistent.  Suppose 
anyone  of  the  following  concepts  is  to  be  defined:  virtue,  duty,  in- 
alienable right,  natural  liberty,  tyranny,  a  sovereign  state.  It  is 
of  essential  importance  to  know  whether  the  definition  concerns 
only  the  concept  as  a  mental  product,  existing  in  and  for  the 
mind  only,  or  whether  there  are  actual  relations  and  activities  of 
human  nature,  to  which  the  concept  corresponds.  In  the  first 
instance  we  should  need  to  consider  only,  whether  the  concept  is 
correctly  defined  as  the  term  is  ordinarily  used,  or  as  this  or  that 
school  of  philosophers  or  politicians  have  conceived  it.  In  the 
second,  we  should  inquire,  whether  it  answers  to  a  truth  of  fact, 
i.  e.,  whether  the  concept  has  a  corresponding  reality. 

Scientific  truth  implies  both  logical  and  real  truth.  Logical 
truth  is  but  another  name  for  logical  consistency.  A  dexterous 
logician,  if  suffered  to  frame  his  own  concepts  and  construct  his 
own  propositions,  may  easily  frame  a  system  which  shall  have 
sufficient  truth  to  give  plausibility  to  all  that  is  defective  by 
omission,  or  false  by  positive  error.  Every  definition  should 
therefore  be  scrutinized  both  as  to  its  consistency  and  its  truth. 
It  should  always  be  remembered  that  a  proposition  may  be  logi- 
cally true  and  yet  really  false,  while  science  requires  that  the 
definition  should  not  only  be  logically  consistent  and  logically 
complete,  but  also  really  exhaustive  and  actually  true. 

§  215.  The  proposition  of  extent  is  the  natural  ^tdegn™ents  of 
consequent  of  the  proposition  of  content.  The  pro- 
position of  content  is  first  in  time,  because  the  knowledge  of  the 
individual  goes  before  the  knowledge  of  the  general.  As  soon, 
however,  as  a  single  attribute  is  affirmed  as  common  to  many 
individuals,  then  this  common  attribute  can  be  employed  as 
itself  dividing  or  separating  these  individuals  into  a  class  by 
themselves.  As  soon  as  we  think,  This  house  is  white,  it  is  pos- 
sible for  us  to  refer  the  house  to  the  class  of  white  objects.  But 
because  every  generalized  attribute  may  classify  the  objects  to 
which  it  belongs,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  mind  recognizes  it 
in  this  relation,  or  expresses  the  relation  in  language.  It  is  not 
till  the  adjective,  white,  becomes  a  noun,  that  we  use  it  as  a 
classifier,  and  think  or  say,  whites,  i.  e.,  white  men,  are  English^ 
French,  etc.,  etc.,  or  white  things  are  so  and  so.  It  is  not  till  we 


364  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §215. 

turn  back  upon  our  thinking,  and  recognize  the  fact  that  these 
attributes  divide  into  classes  the  beings  to  which  they  belong,  and 
even  go  further  and  notice  that  some  classes  of  objects  are  wider 
and  some  narrower  than  others,  that  we  have  occasion  to  think 
of  these  notions  in  their  extent,  or  to  expand  them  into  proposi- 
tions expressing  this  relation. 

Propositions  of  extent  like  those  of  content, strictly  considered, 
only  assert  logical  truth — i.  e.,  the  subordinate  classes  into  which 
the  concept  is  divided.  But  they  often  imply  the  real  existence 
of  the  objects  to  which  both  the  comprehending  genus  and  the 
included  species  belong. 

Propositions  of  extent,  whether  used  in  common  life  or  for  the 
purposes  of  science,  are  clearly  distinguishable  from  propositions 
of  content.  It  is,  however,  easy  to  confound  the  one  with  the 
other ;  and  easy  to  interchange  the  one  with  the  other.  Indeed 
we  are  often  tempted  to  translate  the  propositions  which  express 
the  one  into  those  which  express  the  other.  We  cannot  say  that 
man  is  an  animal  without  implying  that  he  possesses  those  attri- 
butes which  are  involved  in  the  concept  and  the  term  animal. 
Whenever  we  assert  that  man  is  a  species  of  which  animal  is  a 
genus,  we  must  ascribe  to  man  certain  attributes.  Conversely, 
we  cannot  assert  certain  attributes  of  man  without  placing  him 
in  a  distinct  class.  These  facts  are  not  at  all  inconsistent  with 
the  truth  that  at  some  times  we  use  propositions  with  sole  refer- 
ence to  their  content,  and  at  other  times  with  exclusive  respect  to 
their  extent.  Indeed,  the  use  of  propositions  of  extent  is  a  neces- 
sary condition  and  consequence  of  logical  division.  But  if  division 
is  distinguishable  from  definition,  then  are  propositions  of  extent 
clearly  distinguishable  from  propositions  of  content. 

As  definition  gives  complete  propositions  of  content,  so  division 
gives  exact  and  complete  propositions  of  extent.  Both  pro- 
cesses are  involved  in  the  beginnings  of  thinking.  They  are 
only  carried  forward  to  their  completed  perfection  when  we  reach 
the  precise  and  comprehensive  knowledge  which  science  attains. 
Both  are  the  necessary  conditions  of  the  formation  and  use  of 
general  terms,  and  are  the  constant  accompaniments  of  language. 
Both  are  perfect  in  their  ideal  aims  whenever  the  definitions  in 
any  branch  of  knowledge  become  precise  and  true,  and  the 
divisions  orderly  and  exhaustive. 


§  216.  JUDGMENT,   AND   THE   PROPOSITION.  365 

§  216.  It  is  a  superficial  view  to  regard  scientific    Scientific  and 

A  common  know- 

knowledge  as  different  in  kind  from  common  know-  ledge. 
ledge  :  to  reason  as  though  the  man  of  science  has  developed  in- 
tellectual powers  which  are  peculiar  to  himself,  or  has  discovered 
special  processes  or  rules  having  no  relation  to  those  which 
are  natural  to  all  men.  The  powers  employed  by  the  true  phi- 
losopher and  the  uncultured  are  the  same.  The  common  man 
thinks  as  really,  and  in  his  way  as  effectively  and  as  sagaciously, 
as  does  the  philosopher. 

Often  it  is  not  easy  to  find  the  dividing  line  which  separates 
common  from  scientific  knowledge.  We  cannot  say,  in  the 
history  of  any  branch  of  knowledge,  Here  common  knowledge 
ceases  and  science  begins :  At  this  point  he  who  knows  as  a  man, 
begins  to  know  as  a  philosopher.  Of  some  sciences  it  is  true, 
that  at  a  certain  period  of  their  development,  common  terms  are 
exchanged  for  those  which  are  technical,  and  a  scholastic,  some- 
times a  repulsive  nomenclature  takes  the  place  of  words  which 
are  familiar  from  use  and  warm  with  grateful  associations.  Even 
objects  that  in  the  earliest  classifications  had  been  grouped 
together  by  affinities  so  close  that  they  seem  to  have  a  necessary 
and  unbroken  relationship,  are  strangely  separated,  and  find  them- 
selves suddenly  in  a  new  and  unpleasant  society.  Plants  and 
trees  apparently  the  most  alike  are  thrown  into  the  most  distant 
groups,  and  those  which  are  apparently  the  most  diverse  and 
dissimilar  are  inexplicably  brought  together.  In  those  sciences 
which  are  less  technical  in  their  definitions  and  classifications, 
the  lines  of  transition  and  division  are  not  even  suspected.  We 
cannot  find  the  place  where  science  in  its  technical  form  begins, 
and  formally  takes  its  leave  of  common  knowledge.  In  Psycho- 
logy, Ethics,  Politics,  Law  and  Theology,  common  terms  are  in  a 
great  measure  still  retained  ;  they  are  only  employed  with  a  more 
careful  definition  and  a  more  exact  application. 

Science  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  our  analysis,  is  simply 
knowledge  by  concepts  carefully  defined  in  order  to  a  complete  divi- 
sion and  a  methodized  arrangement  of  the  things  or  objects  to  which 
these  concepts  are  applicable.  In  forming  scientific  notions,  the 
mind  discovers  relations  and  attributes  which  it  had  never  ob- 
served before.  In  looking  more  patiently,  it  observes  more 
closely.  As  it  proceeds  to  use  and  apply  the  notions  already 


366  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  217. 

attained,  in  the  processes  of  deduction  and  induction  which  are 
yet  to  be  explained,  it  discerns  still  other  relations  of  likeness 
and  .unlikeness.  As  it  proceeds  in  its  triumphant  course  it  still 
continues  to  define  and  divide.  Science  began  when  it  formed 
the  first  proposition  of  content.  This  involved  a  proposition  of 
extent.  It  will  have  finished  its  course  and  completed  the  circle 
of  its  possible  triumphs,  when  it  shall  have  exhausted  all  that  is 
knowable  by  these  two  processes,  each  involving  the  other — 
when  it  shall  have  arranged  in  systematic  order,  everything  which 
can  be  known,  by  complete  and  subordinated  divisions  as  the  result 
of  true  and  exhaustive  definitions. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

REASONING.  —  DEDUCTION  OR  MEDIATE  JUDGMENT. 


Nature  and  im-       §  ^17.  ^e  Process  °f  thought  or  mode  of  think- 
portanceofrea-  jng  which  we  are  naturally  led  to  consider  next  in 

Boning.  » 

order  is  reasoning.  That  to  reason  is  a  function  of 
the  thinking  power,  will  be  questioned  by  none.  By  many  it  is 
esteemed  its  special  and  almost  its  sole  function,  a  function  which 
absorbs  all  the  rest  into  itself.  Many  make  the  capacity  to  reason 
to  be  the  exclusive  and  distinctive  endowment  of  man,  striving  to 
account  for  all  the  other  thought-processes  by  resolving  them  into 
this. 

Reasoning,  also,  like  every  other  act  or  mode  of  know- 
ing, is  itself  an  act  of  judgment.  It  is  distinguished  from  judg- 
ment proper  by  being  mediate  and  indirect  ;  whereas  judgments 
proper  are  immediate  and  direct.  ' 

The  acts  of  judgment  proper  have  already  been  explained  as 
acts  in  which  a  general  notion  is  thought  or  affirmed  of  an  in- 
dividual being,  or  a  concept,  by  direct  inspection  and  comparison. 
When,  for  example,  we  judge  of  ten  apples,  that  they  are  red, 
or  oval,  or  round,  or  of  equal  or  unequal  weight,  or  of  similar 
taste  or  odor,  we  perform  acts  of  direct  or  immediate  judgment. 
But  when  we  reason  concerning  them,  that  because  they  are  red, 


§  218.    REASONING. — DEDUCTION  OR  MEDIATE  JUDGMENT.         367 

or  similar  in  odor,  therefore  they  taste  alike,  we  judge  indirectly 
or  mediately  ;  we  consider,  not  only  the  apples  themselves,  but 
the  relation  of  one  of  their  properties  to  another.  This  truth  is 
implied  in  the  remark  that  in  judgment  we  compare  two  notiom, 
and  discern  or  pronounce  that  the  notions  agree  or  disagree; 
whereas  in  reasoning  we  compare  two  judgments,  and  declare  or 
discern  that  the  judgments  agree  or  disagree.  If  we  distinguish 
the  process  of  reasoning  from  the  product  or  result — as  in  the 
other  acts  of  the  intellect — we  should  call  the  first  reasoning  and 
the  second  an  argument.  The  latter  is  exclusively  limited  to 
deduction. 

§  218.  The  process  called  reasoning  is  two-fold,  in- 

.  777.  T     •  Beasoning,  in- 

ductive  and  deductive.  It  is  known  by  the  two  names,  ductivo  and  de- 
induction  and  deduction.  These  two  are  sufficiently 
distinguished  by  the  following  definitions :  In  deduction  the  mind 
begins  with  general  propositions,  and  reasons  to  those  which  are 
particular  or  individual ;  in  induction,  it  reasons  from  individual 
or  particular  to  general  judgments. 

In  deduction  we  assume  or  imply  that  the  mind  is  already  fur- 
nished with  judgments  or  beliefs  that  are  more  or  less  general, 
and  proceed  to  derive  from  them,  those  which  are  particular  or 
singular.  In  other  words,  we  apply  the  predicate  of  a  general 
proposition  to  a  particular  or  individual,  to  which  we  had  never 
applied  it  before.  For  example :  '  we  ought  in  every  act  to  con- 
sult the  wishes  of  our  parents ;  therefore  we  ought  to  do  this  in 
choosing  our  business  in  life.'  In  induction,  on  the  contrary,  we 
proceed  from  singular  or  particular  to  general  propositions  or 
truths.  \Ve  observe  that  one  or  several  pieces  of  iron-ore,  with 
certain  characteristics,  are  magnetic.  We  infer  that  every  similar 
piece  of  iron-ore  is  magnetic. 

Both  these  processes  are  called  processes  of  reasoning.  The 
means  employed,  i.  e.,  the  grounds  or  foundations  of  each, 
whether  they  are  general  or  particular  propositions  or  individual 
facts,  are  called  reasons,  sometimes  data.  But  to  reason  par  emi- 
nence, is  to  perform  the  process  of  deduction;  and  reasons  or 
grounds  of  belief  are  preeminently  those  general  principles  or 
truths  from  which  we  derive  or  deduce  particular  conclusions. 
Hence,  when  we  use  the  words  to  reason  and  a  reason,  we  are 
usually  understood  to  have  in  mind  the  deductive  process.  On  the 


368  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  219. 

other  hand,  we  say  freely  that  we  reason  by  induction  or  induc- 
tively ;  and  no  phrases  are  more  common  than  inductive  reasoning 
and  reasoning  by  induction. 

These  two  processes  are  usually  combined  together  in  every 
case  in  which  our  knowledge  is  enlarged  by  what  we  call  reason- 
ing. When  we  use  examples  of  reasoning  for  the  purpose  of 
illustrating  the  nature  of  the  process,  we  seem  to  be  able  to  sepa- 
rate deduction  from  induction.  But  whenever  we  reason  with 
the  express  design  of  adding  to  our  knowledge,  or  of  increasing 
our  confidence  in  that  which  we  already  possess,  both  processes 
are  called  into  requisition.  If,  for  example,  we  should  reason  de- 
ductively, to  prove  to  a  person  who  did  not  already  believe  it, 
that  a  particular  act  of  obedience,  or  perhaps  of  resistance,  to  the 
government,  was  obligatory ;  we  should  use  the  process  of  induc- 
tion to  prove  that  such  an  act  was  distinguished  by  the  character- 
istics or  criteria  which  showed  it  to  come  under  the  duties  of  a 
loyal  citizen. 

In  many  cases,  of  induction,  also,  the  process  of  deduction  is 
brought  into  requisition.  We  can  scarcely  suppose  that  Frank- 
lin established  the  identity  of  lightning  with  machine  electricity, 
without  asking  himself  many  times  over  what  would  be  the  con- 
sequents in  fact,  if  his  hypothesis  should  prove  true.  We  know 
that  Sir  Isaac  Newton  drew  certain  inferences  from  the  supposi- 
tion that  the  law  of  gravitation  was  real,  when  combined  with  a 
false  datum  in  respect  to  the  earth's  diameter  ;  and  because  ob- 
served facts  did  not  coincide  with  the  theory,  he  did  not  accept 
the  theory  which  his  so-called  induction  had  already  reached. 

Induction  and  Deduction,  like  the  analysis  and  synthesis  of 
which  they  are  special  forms,  accompany  each  other  in  all  the 
higher  processes  of  thought.  The  two  blend  together  so  inti- 
mately that  it  is  often  difficult  to  sever  them,  or  to  find  or  trace 
the  line  where  the  one  begins  and  the  other  terminates. 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  Deduction  and  Induction  together. 
We  proceed  to  study  them  apart,  chiefly  from  a  psychological 
point  of  view — beginning  with  Deduction. 

§  219.  Our   chief  inquiry  is,  what  is  the  proper 

deduction"18  f  conception  of  the  deductive  as  an  intellectual  process; 

and  incidental  to  this,  what  is  the  nature  and  what 

are  the  results  of  the  product  which  it  evolves.     To  answer  this 


§  219.    REASONING  —  DEDUCTION  OR  MEDIATE  JUDGMENT.         369 

question  satisfactorily  we  must  consider,  first  of  all,  the  forms  of 
language  in  which  the  process  is  expressed  and  its  results  are 
preserved. 

These  forms  are  two,  the  Enthymeme  and  the  Syllogism,  or  the 
abbreviated  and  the  expanded  syllogism.  The  enthymeme  consists 
of  two  expressed  propositions,  which  are  connected  by  because  or 
therefore.  The  syllogism  consists  of  three,  of  which  the  first  two  are 
simple  assertions,  and  the  third  is  introduced  by  therefore.  For 

i        -mf  •          f       usurper,     1     ,7         /•         ?       f  cannot  exact  obedience  :  ) 

example,  M  is  a  {  iaicful2ruier)  j  therefore  he  {    ought  to  be  obeyed.    \ 

•mr    f  cannot  exact  allegiance,}      j  T         .        f     a  usurper:     ) 

<W»    M    [      ought  to  be  obeyed,      \     because    he    IS      {alawfulruler;}      &re 

examples  of  the  two  forms  of  the  enthymeme.    {  Ev  Jy° 


are  examples  of  the  expanded  syllogism. 

In  the  enthymeme,  the  first  proposition  may  be  either  the  con- 
clusion, or  it  may  be  the  reason.  In  the  syllogism,  the  first 
proposition  is  called  the  major  premise  ;  the  second,  the  minor 
premise  ;  and  the  third,  the  conclusion. 

The  two  premises  of  every  syllogism  must  have  one  term 
common  to  both,  which  is  called  the  middle  term.  In  the  ex- 
amples given  —  lawful  ruler  and  usurper  are  the  middle  terms 
respectively  of  the  two  syllogisms.  Unless  there  is  this  middle 
term,  there  is  no  force  or  convincing  power  in  the  argument 
if  we  introduce  two  middle  terms,  there  is  no  conclusion.  The 
middle  term  must  also  have  the  relation  affirmed  to  the  other 
two.  If  we  substitute  worthy  or  unworthy  person  for  lawful  ruler 
or  usurper,  the  conclusion  will  be  false. 

Every  enthymeme  can  be  expanded  into  a  syllogism.  The 
syllogism  when  expanded  expresses  in  separate  propositions  the 
truths  which  the  enthymeme  implies.  There  is  in  every  enthy- 
meme the  suppressed  premise  of  a  syllogism.  When  we  reason 
in  the  examples  given,  M  is  a  lawful  ruler,  therefore  he  ought  to 
be  obeyed,  or  M  ought  to  be  obeyed  because  he  is  the  lawful 
ruler,  we  believe  and  imply  in  the  argument  —  though  we  do  not 
assert  —  that  every  lawful  ruler  ought  to  be  obeyed.  This  is  the 
major  premise  of  the  syllogism  into  which  the  enthymeme  is  by 
this  addition  expanded.  The  difference  between  the  enthymeme 
and  the  syllogism  is  onlv  a  difference  between  a  contracted  and 

16* 


370  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §220. 

an  expanded  form  of  expression ;  or  between  an  elliptical  and  a 
fully  explicated  sentence.  It  is  a  difference  of  language  only, 
and  not  in  the  least  a  difference  of  thought  or  of  the  relations 
of  thought  or  knowledge ;  what  is  expressed  in  the  one,  being 
implied  in  the  other. 

nT,tea 8b  "tSm  §  220'  The  syllogism  is  the  only  form  which  fully 
ti"o™  °f  deduc"  expresses  in  language  all  the  processes  in  the  act  of 
deduction.  Some  have  contended  that  it  is  one  of  the  forms  of 
deduction,  but  not  the  sole  form  appropriate  to  it.  Thus,  Princi- 
pal Campbell  in  his  Philosophy  of  Rhetoric  contends  that  the  syl- 
logistic is  only  one  of  the  possible  methods  of  reasoning,  while 
there  are  others  which  are  in  many  cases  greatly  to  be  pre- 
ferred to  this ;  and  J.  S.  Mill,  in  his  Logic,  urges  that  it  is  not  a 
form  of  reasoning  at  all,  but  a  convenient  expedient  for  recording 
and  referring  to  the  results  of  our  experience  in  particular  or 
individual  cases.  It  is  obvious,  for  the  reasons  already  given, 
that  it  is  a  form  into  which  all  deductive  reasoning  may  be 
phrased,  and  it  is  the  one  and  the  only  form  in  which  all  the 
materials  considered  and  the  relations  involved  are  fully  stated 
in  language.  When  for  example  we  supply  the  premise  that 
had  been  suppressed  in  the  enthymeme,  we  do  not  add  that 
which  is  superfluous  to  the  process  through  which  we  have  gone, 
or  to  the  argument  which  the  process  implied.  We  simply 
express  in  language  what  we  had  thought  or  were  ready  to  think 
in  fact — that  which  if  we  had  not  believed  when  we  drew  our 
conclusion,  we  should  not  have  reached  it  at  all.  Thus,  if  we 
did  not  believe  that '  all  lawful  rulers  ought  to  be  obeyed,  we 
could  not  reach  the  inference  that  M  ought  to  be  obeyed  because 
he  is  the  lawful  ruler. 

Again ;  In  the  syllogism  the  process  of  reasoning  is  fully  ex- 
panded and  complete.  Any  additional  propositions,  whether 
connected  with  either  of  the  premises  or  with  the  conclusion,  are 
seen  at  once  to  be  a  premise  or  a  conclusion  of  another  syllo- 
gism. If  for  example  we  enlarge  the  premise,  "all  lawful 
rulers  ought  to  be  obeyed,"  by  the  reason  "  because  it  is  the 
will  of  God,  or  an  obvious  duty,"  we  introduce  an  additional 
process  of  reasoning,  the  object  of  which  is  to  prove  that  the  first 
premise  is  correct.  If  we  add  a  reason  for  holding  that  M  is  a 
lawful  ruler,  as  "  because  he  has  been  properly  commissioned  or 


§221.   REASONING. — DEDUCTION  OR  MEDIATE  JUDGMENT.         371 

fairly  elected,"  we  do  the  same  for  the  second  premise.  If  we 
annex  to  the  conclusion  an  additional  remark,  as  "  therefore  M 
ought  to  be  obeyed,  and  to  disobey  him  is  a  serious  crime,"  we 
simply  introduce  a  second  conclusion,  which  requires  another  ar- 
gument to  support  it. 

Every  argument,  whether  positive  or  negative,  whether  the 
propositions  are  universal  or  particular,  can  be  expressed  in  the 
form  which  has  already  been  stated,  by  changes  in  the  phrase- 
ology or  the  position  of  the  terms,  without  affecting  the  sense  or 
the  force  of  the  argument. 

This  is  demonstrated  at  length  in  every  treatise  on  formal 
logic.  A  few  examples  will  suffice  for  our  purpose.  If  we 
make  the  first  premise  negative  by  substituting  "  no  lawful  ruler 
should  be  disobeyed,"  the  real  nature  of  the  argument  is  not 
changed.  The  same  is  true  if  in  the  second  premise  we  substi- 
tute "  M  rules  lawfully  "  for  "  M  is  a  lawful  ruler  " — a  proposition 
of  content  for  one  of  extent. 

If  we  change  the  form  of  the  first  premise  by  inverting  the 
order  of  the  terms,  that  is,  by  conversion,  which  we  can  do  with 
the  negative  premise  and  retain  its  full  meaning,  we  bring  the 
middle  term  into  the  predicate  of  each  of  the  premises  ;  but  the 
argument  and  its  power  to  prove  a  conclusion  are  the  same. 

If  we  convert  the  second,  or  minor  premise,  we  bring  the  mid- 
dle term  into  the  subject  of  each  premise,  but  this  does  not  alter 
the  strength  of  the  argument. 

If  we  transpose  the  order  of  the  premises,  the  relation  of  each 
part  to  the  conclusion  is  the  same,  whatever  may  be  the  order  in 
which  the  two  are  uttered.  All  these  changes  can  be  made  in 
the  arrangement  of  the  parts  of  the  syllogism,  without  affecting 
the  nature  or  force  of  the  argument. 

§  221.  The  rules  for  testing  the  validity  o.f  the 
syllogism  may  all  be  founded  on  the  maxim,  usually 
called  the  dictum  de  omni  et  nullo.  It  is  as  follows :  whatever  is 
predicated  of  a  class  either  affirmatively  or  negatively,  may  be 
affirmed  of  whatever  is  contained  in  or  under  the  clas?. 

For  this  dictum,  later  logicians  have  substituted  the  maxim, 
Nota  notce  est  etiam  nota  rei,  repugnans  notes  repugnat  etiam  rei. 
This  is  adopted  by  J.  S.  Mill  in  his  Logic,  I.,  c.  ii,  §  3.  It  is  the 
same  in  principle  with  the  dictum  of  Aristotle.  The  same  is 


372  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §221. 

true  of  the  special  construction  of  the  syllogism  proposed  by 
Hamilton,  by  which  the  propositions  are  stated  in  relations  of 
quantity,  and  the  dictum  de  omni  et  nullo  is  displaced  by  whatever 
is  a  part  of  a  part  is  a  part  of  the  containing  whole. 

In  another  form  this  dictum  would  be  founded  on  the  fact  that 
the  middle  term,  as  it  is  a  concept,  stands  to  other  notions  in 
the  two  relations  of  extent  and  content,  and  would  read  thus,  "  A 
notion  that  is,  or  is  not,  in  any  extent,  may,  or  may  not,  take  to 
itself  the  notion  which  is  of  its  content"  The  last  formula  has 
the  advantage  of  stating  concisely  both  the  likeness  and  the  differ- 
ence between  an  act  of  judgment  and  an  act  of  reasoning.  For  in 
an  act  of  judgment,  as  we  have  seen,  a  concept  may  be  expanded 
either  in  the  direction  of  its  extent  or  of  its  content.  So  far  as 
the  single  act  of  judgment  is  concerned,  the  notion  is  viewed  in 
only  one  relation,  that  of  its  extent  or  of  its  content,  as  the  case 
may  be.  But  in  an  act  of  reasoning,  a  notion,  i.  e.,  the  middle 
term,  is  viewed  in  both  these  relations  at  once,  and  the  result  is 
that  a  relation  is  developed  and  observed  between  notions,  which 
had  not  been  discerned  before. 

But  neither  the  relations  of  a  genus  to  a  species  nor  those  of  a 
part  to  a  whole,  nor  those  of  extent  and  content  combined,  give  to 
the  premises  of  the  syllogism  the  power  of  demonstration.  They 
suggest  and  they  test  the  validity  of  a  syllogism,  but  they  do 
not  explain  that  in  the  deductive  process  which  gives  it  convin- 
cing power  over  the  mind.  No  syllogism  is  valid  to  which  the 
dictum  de  omni  et  nullo  cannot  be  applied,  but  it  does  not  follow 
that  the  maxim  expresses  the  real  ground  of  our  faith  in  the  psy- 
chological process  which  we  call  deduction.  The  relations  of 
both  major  and  minor  terms  to  the  extent  and  the  content  of 
the  middle,  may  be  the  only  relations  that  need  to  be  expressed 
in  language,  and  yet  may  not  develop  or  exhibit  the  real  relation 
which  leads  to  our  assent  to  the  conclusion. 

In  point  of  fact,  every  attempt  to  explain  the  deductive  pro- 
cess, as  such,  by  these  relations,  has  failed,  and  the  failure  of 
these  attempts  has  perpetually  exposed  the  doctrine  of  the  syllo- 
gism to  suspicion  and  contempt.  Cf.  Locke,  Essay,  B.  IV.,  Chap. 
17,  §§  4-8;  G.  Campbell,  Phil,  of  Rhetoric,  B.  I.,  Chap.  6;  D. 
Stewart,  Elements,  P.  II.,  Chaps.  2,  3  &  4 ;  J.  S.  Mill,  System  of 
Logic,  B.  II.,  Chap.  3;  S.  Bailey,  Theory  of  Reasoning. 


§  222.    REASONING. — DEDUCTION  OR  MEDIATE  JUDGMENT.         373 

The  real  error  or  defect  consists  in  making  the  essence  or  im- 
port of  both  induction  and  deduction  to  consist  in  classification 
and  the  apprehension  of  class  relations.  If  induction  consists 
only  or  chiefly  in  establishing  general  facts  by  extended  observa- 
tion, then  deduction  must  by  consequence  signify  the  recognition 
of  what  must  already  have  been  known  in  the  formation  of  the 
class.  If  induction  is  a  synthesis  of  individuals  into  a  compre- 
hensive whole,  then  deduction  must  be  an  analysis  of  this  whole 
into  its  parts.  If  the  synthesis  has  been  carefully  made,  then  the 
analysis  is  unnecessary  because  it  is  superfluous.  According  to 
this  view  of  the  two  processes,  deduction  is  only  subsidiary  to  in- 
duction, and  when  we  seem  to  perform  the  process  of  demonstra- 
tion or  proof,  it  is  the  inductive  and  not  the  deductive  element 
which  gives  it  any  value  or  force. 

§  222.  The  relation  which  is  characteristic  of  the 
deductive  process  is  that  of  a  reason  to  its  consequent, 
or  of  a  ground  to  its  inference.  It  is  by  means  of 
this  relation  that  we  know  objects  by  means  of  this 
process  of  knowledge.  This  relation  is  suggested  to  the  mind  in 
the  syllogism  by  the  relation  of  a  whole  to  a  part,  but  it  is  not 
therefore  resolvable  into  this  relation,  nor  should  it  be  confounded 
with  it.  When  we  say,  all  magnets  attract  iron ;  this  is  a  magnet  t 
therefore  it  attracts  iron ;  the  word  all  suggests  or  indicates  that 
there  is  some  reason  founded  on  the  nature  or  properties  of  the 
magnet,  which  forces  us  to  believe  that  this  particular  magnet 
will  do  the  same.  This  relation  finds  expression  in  language  by 
because  in  the  enthymeme,  and  by  therefore  in  the  syllogism. 
Because  signifies  by  cause  of.  Therefore  means  for,  i.  e.,  on  account 
of  that,  viz.,  that  which  had  been  previously  stated  in  the  pre- 
mises ;  there  being  equivalent  to  the  foregoing.  Both  words  signify 
by  reason  of. 

In  other  words,  in  order  to  explain  the  process  of  deductive 
reasoning,  we  must  assume  that  every  thing  that  exists  and  occurs, 
whether  in  the  material  or  spirit  world,  exists  and  occurs  under 
the  real  relation  of  causation,  or  constituent  elements  and  laws. 
Every  phenomenon  and  every  thought-creation  in  the  universe 
exists  by  the  workings  of  powers  with  which  finite  agents  are  en- 
dowed, in  obedience  to  fixed  conditions  and  laws,  in  order  to 
accomplish  rational  ends  or  results.  Every  such  existence  is  ao 


374  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §222. 

effect ;  material  things,  spiritual  agents,  nay,  even  mathematical 
and  logical  concepts.  The  nature  and  the  constitution  of  these 
effects  are  all  explained  by  the  causes,  conditions,  and  ends,  by, 
under,  and  for  which,  they  are  conceived  to  exist  and  to  act. 
Any  one  of  these  elements,  when  applied  to  explain  their  existence, 
or  to  confirm  our  knowledge  when  we  seek  explanation  or 
proof,  is  called  a  reason.  When  such  a  reason  is  discovered  to 
explain  or  account  for  a  fact  or  phenomenon,  the  process  is  called 
induction.  When  it  is  applied  to  impart  or  confirm  knowledge 
concerning  a  fact  or  truth  in  respect  to  which  the  mind  seeks  to 
be  informed  or  convinced,  the  process  is  called  deduction.  To 
know  by  either  or  both  of  these  processes  is  to  know  by  a  reason, 
— it  is  to  reason,  ratiocinari  ;  it  is  reasoning,  ratiocinatio. 

For  proof  of  this  we  appeal  to  the  process  of  reasoning  itself. 
In  doing  so,  we  should  not  employ  any  of  those  trivial  examples 
which  occur  in  most  books  of  logic,  but  rather  select  some  exam- 
ple of  the  process  of  deduction  when  it  is  of  actual  service,  i.  e., 
when  it  is  employed  to  relieve  the  mind  from  doubt,  or  to  answer 
its  questionings  as  to  what  is  true.  In  every  such  case  we  shall 
find  that  the  mind  has  no  direct  access  to  the  object  before  it,  and 
can  gain  no  immediate  or  intuitive  knowledge.  It  is  the  cause, 
the  effect  or  the  law,  the  end  or  the  means, — one  side  or  term, — to 
which  the  mind  has  any  means  of  access.  But  it  knows  or  may 
know  that  under  the  law  of  causation  this  is  necessarily  connected 
with  the  other  term.  The  use  of  this  relation  for  the  relief  of 
doubt  or  the  acquisition  of  knowledge,  is  reasoning.  When  the 
relation  of  causation  is  applied  to  this  use  it  passes  into  the  rela- 
tion of  reason  and  its  consequent.  The  necessary  connection  in- 
volved in  causation  when  thus  applied  gives  to  deduction  con- 
vincing force.  This  discerned  necessary  connection  between  a 
cause  and  its  effect,  means  and  end,  etc.,  etc.,  is  what  we  call  the 
force  of  demonstration  or  deduction. 

That  the  deductive  process  and  the  syllogism  are  founded  on  the  relation  of 
causality  was  distinctly  taught  by  Aristotle.  He  remarks,  Anal.  Post.,  II.,  2  :  TO 
Itev  yap  alnov  TO  /u.e'croj',  which  means  in  this  connection,  the  middle  term,  is  causal 
in  its  significance.  To  the  like  effect  is  the  passage,  Anal.  Post.,  II.,  12,  Tb  yAp 
jxeVov  alnov.  Aristotle  distinguishes  between  the  cause  of  being  and  the  cause 
of  knowing, — ratio  essendi  and  ratio  cognosccndi,  i.  e.,  between  the  cause  and 
the  reason,  but  he  does  not  show  how  the  one  is  related  to  the  other. 

The  later  Greek  logicians  being  more  occupied  with  the  forms  of  the  syllogism 


§  223.   REASONING. — DEDUCTION  OR  MEDIATE  JUDGMENT.         375 

and  its  application  to  the  detection  of  fallacies  than  with  its  psychological  import, 
left  very  much  out  of  view  this  important  hint  of  their  great  master.  The  scholas- 
tics committed  the  double  error  of  believing  that  the  syllogism  was  the  sole  instru- 
ment of  acquiring  new  knowledge,  or  of  discovery  properly  so-called,  to  the 
neglect  of  induction  ;  and  of  supposing  that  the  formal  relations  of  the  syllogism 
constituted  and  measured  all  the  relations  of  things.  Hence  the  axioms  were  so 
generally  received  in  the  Continental  schools,  that  the  principles  of  identity,  of  con^ 
tradiction,  and  excluded  middle — the  so-called  laws  of  thought — are  the  only 
criteria  of  real  truth  and  actual  knowledge,  and  that  the  process  of  deduction  itself 
can  be  explained  by  these  axioms. 

Leibnitz  is  a  distinguished  and  notable  exception  to  this  nearly  uniform  course 
of  speculation.  He  asserts  that,  for  the  purpose  of  philosophy,  besides  the 
principle  of  contradiction  another  is  required,  viz.,  the  principle  of  the  sufficient 
reason.  But  the  principle  of  the  sufficient  reason  of  Leibnitz  is  explained  and 
applied  by  himself  indifferently,  alike  to  the  causes  of  actually  existing  phe- 
nomena and  the  reasons  of  demonstrated  truth.  That  is,  the  ratio  essendi  is 
not  distinguished  from  the  ratio  cognoscendi,  and  of  course  there  is  no  attempt  to 
show  the  relation  of  the  one  to  the  other.  It  is  not  surprising  that  a  principle 
go  imperfectly  enounced  did  not  take  a  permanent  place  in  the  schools  of  philo- 
sophy. Even  Wolf  himself,  Leibnitz's  professed  disciple  and  expounder  ( Ontol.^ 
$  70  sqq. ;  Met.,  £  30  sqq.),  attempts  to  resolve  the  law  of  causation  and  the  suffi- 
cient reason  into  the  law  of  contradiction.  The  tendency  of  modern  philosophy 
has  been  to  consider  the  law  of  the  sufficient  reason  as  extra-logical  (Hamilton, 
Dis.,Tp.  603),  or  to  derive  it  in  both  forms,  of  real  and  logical  cause,  from  the 
relations  of  concepts  to  concepts,  instead  of  founding  the  ratio  cognoscendi  on  the 
ratio  essendi,  i.  e.,  on  the  relations  of  things ;  thereby  inverting  the  processes 
of  nature  and  destroying  confidence  in  the  grounds  of  knowledge  and  of  faith. 

§  223.  The  conception  of  the  logical  reason  is 
wider  in  its  range  and  application  than  that  of  the 
real  cause  on  .which  it  is  founded.  The  real  cause  is  faws^863  and 
usually  prior  to  the  effect  which  it  produces.  The 
mind  in  apprehending  or  observing  its  actual  workings,  assumes 
or  supposes  the  cause,  in  order  to  anticipate  or  explain  the  actual 
effect.  But  in  applying  this  relation  for  the  purposes  of  reason- 
ing, the  mind  may  begin  with  the  effect  and  conclude  to  a  cause, 
as  properly  as  when  it  begins  with  the  cause  and  reasons  to  an 
effect.  Either  involves  the  other  in  a  connect -on  of  thought ; 
either  can  be  made  to  imply  the  other  in  the  order  of  deduction 
or  reasoning. 

The  reason  and  the  cause  coincide,  when  from  an  actual  cause, 
(the  conditions  and  laws  being  included  or  supposed,)  we  reason 
to  the  certainty  or  reality  of  the  effect.  Thus  the  fire  did  or  will 
fall  into  a  vessel  of  gunpowder,  therefore  an  explosion  did  or 
will  occur.  They  diverge,  when  we  reason  from  the  effect  to  the 


376  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  '224. 

cause,  i.  e.,  when  the  effect  is  made  the  reason  for  our  belief  in  or 
knowledge  of  the  cause :  as  the  vessel  of  gunpowder  exploded, 
therefore  heat  in  some  form  was  present.  The  known  effect  is  in 
this  case  the  reason  for  the  believed  or  proved  conclusion. 

In  a  similar  way  we  reason  both  forwards  and  backwards  from 
the  means  to  the  end  and  from  the  end  to  the  means,  making 
either  the  end  or  the  means  the  reason,  and  the  means  or  the  end 
the  conclusion.  So  in  moral  action  we  reason  from  the  motives 
forward  to  the  act  or  purpose,  and  backward  from  the  act  or 
purpose  to  the  impelling  motives,  making  either  the  reason  for 
believing  the  other,  with  such  reservations  as  the  nature  of  their 
mutual  activity  requires. 

The  distinction  should  also  be  noticed  between  causes,  i.  e. 
powers,  and  laws.  Laws  designate  those  permanent  circumstances 
or  relations  which,  though  not  separate  agents  themselves,  modify 
the  production  of  the  effect,  so  that  with  or  without  these,  the 
effect  does  or  does  not  actually  occur,  or  the  energy  of  the  effect 
varies  as  these  circumstances  vary.  The  best  example  of  a  law 
as  distinguished  from  a  cause  or  agent,  is  the  law  of  gravitation 
— according  to  which  the  force  varies  inversely  as  the  square 
of  the  distance.  For  the  purposes  of  reasoning,  however,  the 
law  may  be  viewed  as  giving  efficiency  to  the  cause ;  i.  e.,  the 
power  in  question,  e.  g.,  gravitation,  is  known  or  manifested  as  a 
cause  which  we  can  apply  in  deduction,  so  far  as  or  when  it  obeys 
certain  laws. 

§  224.  When  we  employ  reasons  to  prove  geomet- 
reSo°nTtrical  r^ca^  trutn>  tne  grounds  of  the  process  and  the 
conviction  which  it  imparts  are  found  in  the  nature 
of  the  materials  conceived  as  necessitating  certain  products  or 
effects  in  a  way  similar  to  that  in  which  an  existing  agenf, 
whether  matter  or  spirit,  brings  to  pass  its  results.  The  triangJ.e, 
square,  cube  and  sphere  are  regarded  as  possessed  of  certain 
properties,  which,  when  subjected  to  certain  changes,  or  brought 
into  certain  combinations,  make  the  existence  of  certain  other 
properties  necessary.  The  ratio  essendi,  or  the  conceived  proper- 
ties of  the  geometrical  figures  in  space  as  constructed  by  the 
mind  becomes  the  ratio  cognoscendi.  The  geometrical  figure 
is  regarded  as  having  causal  efficiency,  the  effects  or  consequences 
of  which  cannot  be  set  aside. 


§  221.    REASONING. — DEDUCTION  OR  MEDIATE  JUDGMENT.         377 

Thus:  two  triangles  are  similar,  i.  e.,  their  sides  and  cor- 
responding angles  are  equal,  because  they  are  the  halves  mads 
by  the  diagonal  of  a  parallelogram.  The  reason  is  found  in  tin 
properties  of  the  parallelogram.  But  these  properties  are  deter, 
mined  by  the  constructive  acts  of  the  mind,  space  being  assumea 
as  allowing  the  mind  to  conceive  or  construct  certain  figures. 
These  figures  when  constructed  are  divided,  i.  e.,  new  figures  are 
constructed — they  are  compared  with  each  other — they  are  su- 
perimposed upon  one  another — in  short,  there  is  a  series  of  con- 
secutive acts  passing  into  effects,  the  acts  determining  the  effects, 
and  the  effects  being  determined  or  defined  by  the  mind's  acts 
and  the  material,  viz.,  space,  with  which  it  works.  We  reason 
from  these  acts,  i.  e.,  from  that  conceived  as  the  cause  to  the  effect, 
or  from  the  effect  back  to  the  cause,  precisely  as  when  the  cause 
and  effect  are  material. 

The  same  is  true,  when  we  reason  from  the  essential  consti- 
tuents of  a  logical  concept ;  or  construct  what  some  logicians 
call  immediate  syllogisms,  e.  g.,  conclusions  of  logical  conversion, 
etc.  These  last  scarcely  deserve  to  be  called  proper,  as  the  process 
is  merely  formal.  But  if  they  are  so  regarded,  then  the  parts 
and  the  whole,  from  one  to  the  other  of  which  in  such  cases  we 
reason,  have  been  previously  fixed  by  the  thinking  power,  or  the 
power  to  generalize  at  all.  These  logical  products,  as  wholes  and 
parts,  positives  and  negatives,  etc.,  are  regarded  as  causal  of 
certain  results  to  any  objects  brought  into  certain  relations  with 
them.  They  are  reasoned  of  as  though  they  were  actually  exist- 
ing beings  with  causal  properties  obeying  unchanging  laws.  By 
the  same  rule :  We  say,  some  islands  are  surrounded  by  water, 
because  all  islands  are  surrounded  by  water.  Any  special  act 
of  duty  can  only  be  performed  by  a  moral  being,  because  duty 
in  every  case  is  the  act  of  such  a  being. 


378  THE    HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §226. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

SEASONING.  —  VARIETIES  OF  DEDUCTION. 

§  225.  The  sameness  of  the  process  of  deduction 
we  e  vathree*  enables  us  to  understand  the  diversity  in  the  several 
'      l"  varieties  of  deductive  reasoning.      These    are    deter- 


mined by  the  differences  in  the  subject-matter  upon 
or  about  which  the  process  of  deduction  is  employed,  so  far  as 
this  subject-matter  occasions  a  difference  in  the  character  of  the 
reasons  upon  which  the  reasoning  depends.  Material  forces  and 
reasons  differ  from  the  psychological  and  moral.  Both  these  are 
•unlike  the  mathematical.  Those  which  are  purely  logical  differ 
from  all  the  others.  These  differences  in  the  subject  matter  also 
require  a  special  preparation  in  each  case,  in  order  to  make  it 
ready  for  the  application  of  the  deductive  process  proper. 

The  varieties  of  deductive  reasoning  usually  recognized  are 
(he  Probable,  the  Mathematical,  and  the  Formal. 

Probable  reasoning  is  again  subdivided  into  three,  the  physi- 
cal, the  psychological,  and  the  historical,  according  as  the  subject- 
matter  is  physical  beings  and  phenomena,  spiritual  agents  and 
their  manifestations,  or  those  combinations  of  the  two  which 
make  up  human  history.  It  is  often  called  applied  reasoning, 
because  its  materials  are  facts  known  by  observation  and  induc- 
tion, and  its  processes  are  applied  to  the  materials  thus  acquired 
or  furnished. 

Mathematical  reasoning  is  threefold,  according  as  it  is  con- 
cerned with  continued  or  discrete  quantity,  or  as  it  combines  the 
methods  appropriate  to  each.  It  is  geometrical,  arithmetical 
and  analytical. 

Formal  reasoning  concerns  itself  with  pure  concepts  abstracted 
from  all  beings  and  phenomena,  and  with  the  relations  which 
such  concepts  involve.  It  is  sometimes  technically  styled  simply 
logical  deduction,  and  its  arguments  are  called  immediate,  or 
purely  logical,  syllogisms. 

§  226.  In  probable  or  applied  deduction,  we  may 
for  the  present  assume  that  the  premises  are  fur- 
nished by  induction  and  observation.  In  applied 


l" 


§  226.  REASONING. — VARIETIES  OF  DEDUCTION.  379 

reasoning  as  defined,  induction  is  always  necessary  to  furnish 
major  premises,  because  there  can  be  no  reasons,  if  there  are  no 
general  or  universal  powers  or  laws.  For  minor  premises  in 
these  cases,  observation  often  suffices,  because  it  often  furnishes 
individual  facts  or  events.  When  these  minor  premises  affirm 
any  thing  of  a  class  of  generalized  objects,  induction  may  be  re- 
quired as  well  as  observation.  This  description  of  reasoning 
is  called  probable,  sometimes  problematical  and  moral,  simply 
because  the  subject-matter  depends  on  causes  which  are  con- 
tingent and  is  not  necessarily  true.  Its  reality  cannot  be  proved 
by  demonstrative  evidence.  As  such  it  is  contrasted  with  the 
mathematical  and  formal,  the  subject-matter  of  which  is  in  no 
sense  a  real  being  or  event,  and  is  dependent  on  no  contingency 
for  its  existence  or  occurrence,  but  on  the  properties  or  relations 
of  mathematical  and  logical  concepts.  The  terms  probable,  etc., 
do  not,  however,  imply  that  the  processes  involved  are  less  valid  or 
convincing,  or  that  the  premises  or  conclusions  are  less  trustworthy. 

But  whether  the  reasoning  process,  as  such,  relates  to  facts  of 
matter,  to  facts  of  spirit,  or  to  facts  of  history,  it  rests  upon 
reasons  in  the  way  already  explained.  The  facts  are  reasoned 
out  whenever  the  power  or  law  with  its  conditions  is  employed  to 
prove  that  they  must  have  occurred  inasmuch  as  the  causes 
exist  which  require  them  ;  or  whenever  facts  or  events  known  to 
exist  are  explained  by  being  referred  to  such  agencies  or  laws. 

Thus,  the  suspended  weight  let  loose,  it  is  reasoned,  must  fall, 
because  the  force  of  gravitation  is  always  in  action ;  or  the  reason 
why  it  fell,  or  why  it  ought  to  be  believed  that  it  fell,  is  that  this 
power  was  acting  at  the  time,  under  certain  of  its  laws. 

In  the  sphere  of  spirit,  /  reason  that  at  the  thought  of  Han- 
nibal I  shall  always  think  of  Fabius,  because  the  two,  by  asso- 
ciation, have  become  permanently  fixed  in  my  thoughts.  By  a 
reference  to  the  operation  of  this  power  under  its  laws,  I  explain 
the  fact,  that  I  thought  of  Fabius  a  moment  previous. 

The  student  and  interpreter  of  history  reasons  concerning  the 
events  of  the  past  when  he  seeks  to  explain  them  by  their  appro- 
priate causes  and  laws,  or  to  forecast  the  future  by  means  of  the 
great  forces  or  agencies, — the  so-called  principles — through 
which  the  course  of  events  and  the  results  of  important  move- 
ments in  society  can  be  interpreted. 


380  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §227. 

Deduction  is  more  satisfactory  and  convincing  when  applied 
to  material  than  when  applied  to  spiritual  phenomena,  because 
the  agencies  known  in  the  one  sphere  are  more  numerous  than  in 
the  other,  and  because  the  laws  according  to  which  these 
agencies  produce  their  results  are  capable  of  being  expressed  in 
mathematical  formulae.  Hence,  in  many  of  the  physical  sciences 
we  apply  the  rigor,  the  certainty  and  the  variety  of  geometrical 
deduction,  as  in  Mechanics,  Optics,  Navigation,  Theoretical  As- 
tronomy and  Chemical  Analysis. 

§  227.  This  introduces  into  the  sphere  of  pure  de- 

Mathematical  .  •         »  .  .   , 

reasoning,  ma-  duction  a  second  element,  viz.,  the  mathematical,  which 
in  many  of  the  physical  sciences,  is  combined  with 
that  which  is  contingent  or  problematical,  but  which  in  the  pure 
or  abstract  mathematics,  gives  character  to  what  is  called  by 
eminence  mathematical  reasoning. 

The  objects  or  entities  with  which  mathematical  reasoning  is 
concerned,  are  constructed  by  the  mind  itself  on  the  suggestion 
of,  and  of  course  with  reference  to,  certain  material  things  and 
occurring  acts,  which  are  related  to  one  another  in  space  and 
time.  Hence  these  entities  themselves  have  certain  definite  re- 
lations to  space  and  time,  which  are  called  their  properties. 

We  find  ourselves,  at  a  certain  stage  of  intellectual  develop- 
ment, possessed  of  the  concepts  which  are  employed  in  geometry, 
arithmetic,  and  algebra — as  the  Point,  the  Line,  the  Superficies, 
the  Triangle,  the  Square,  the  Circle,  the  Cube,  the  Sphere,  the  Cone, 
etc.,  as  also  the  Unit,  the  Sum,  the  Difference,  the  MultipCe,  the 
Divisor  and  the  Ratio. 

These  are  properly  called  concepts  or  general  notions.  The 
individual  objects  of  which  these  concepts  are  affirmable  are,  as 
it  would  seem  at  first,  individual  objects  of  sense  or  spirit;  as 
when  we  affirm  a  line,  or  point,  or  superficies  to  belong  to  a 
block  of  ivory.  On  second  thought,  we  are  sure  that  the  mathe- 
matical point,  line,  or  surface,  cannot  belong  to  any  material 
object  as  such,  for  the  reason  that  there  are  no  perfectly  even  QI 
sharp  edges  or  even  planes  in  any  material  object.  Nor  are  thei  i 
in  nature  any  perfect  units,  exactly  the  counterparts  of  one  an- 
other. 

These  individual  entities  are  then  generalized,  and  become 
concepts ;  having  a  content  and  extent,  and  being  capable  of 


§  228.  REASONING. — VARIETIES  OF  DEDUCTION.  381 

definition,  division,  and  classification.  The  individual  and  the 
general  are  however  scarcely  distinguished  by  the  mind  itself. 
Indeed,  in  the  mathematical  processes  the  mind  passes  so  quickly 
from  the  individual  to  the  general  and  returns  so  readily  to  the 
individual  as  not  always  to  notice  for  the  moment  with  which  it 
has  to  do,  whether  with  the  lines  and  triangles  as  individuals,  or 
with  them  as  the  representatives  of  all  conceivable  lines  and  tri- 
angles. 

It  is  another  marked  and  distinctive  peculiarity  of  these  rela- 
tions, that  they  are  clearly  and  entirely  distinguishable  from  all 
other  generalized  properties.  The  length,  breadth,  etc.,  of  any 
material  object  cannot  be  confounded  with  its  sensible  qualities, 
nor  can  the  relations  of  number  be  mistaken  for  those  proper- 
ties of  matter  or  spirit  of  which  sense  or  consciousness  takes  cog- 
nizance. Not  only  are  they  clearly  separated  as  classes,  but  each 
member  of  the  class  is  sharply  separable  from  every  other.  The 
line  can  not  possibly  be  confounded  with  the  surface,  nor  the  sum 
with  the  difference. 

§  228.  These  concepts,  like  all  others,  can,  as  has  been 
explained,  be  expanded  into  propositions  of  content  and  JJJjjJJ ons  and 
extent.     Mathematical  propositions  of  content  are  the 
definitions  which  state  the  attributes  that  constitute  the  essence 
of  each  of  the  complex  concepts  which  we  form  by  mathematical 
construction,  as   the    square,  the   triangle,  the    cube,   etc.,  etc. 
The  best  and  most  satisfactory  definitions  are  those  which  bring 
directly  before  the  mind  the  act  or  process  by  which  the  concepts 
are  supposed  to  be  constructed. 

Such  definitions  we  sometimes  phrase  in  the  language  of  com- 
mand, as,  draw  me  a  line,  move  a  plane,  etc.  For  this  reason 
they  are  called  postulates,  postulata,  i.  e.,  concepts  which  may  be 
constructed  and  assumed  without  dissent.  The  definitions  of  the 
concepts  of  number  scarcely  need  to  be  given.  We  assume  at 
once  that  all  men  know  what  they  signify.  When  an  explana- 
tion of  them  is  required,  we  refer  directly  to  the  process  of  num- 
bering, i.  e.,  we  count  by  a  series  produced  by  the  constant  addi- 
tion of  units.  Mathematical  definitions  also  state  the  entire  im- 
port or  essence  of  their  concepts.  We  are  certain  that  the  defini- 
tions of  a  triangle  and  square  are  exhaustive.  Such  concepts  are 
in  their  very  nature  transparent :  we  can  see  through  them  as 


382  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §228. 

through  crystal  water  to  the  bottom  of  a  mountain  lake.  We 
know  that  the  properties  enumerated  perfectly  distinguish  eaclj 
concept  from  every  other.  The  definition  does  not  indeed  ex^ 
press  all  that  is  true  of  its  concept  as  related  to  every  other  ii» 
every  conceivable  combination,  (else  reasoning  or  analysis  could 
not  add  to  our  knowledge,)  but  it  gives  all  that  is  essential  to 
enable  the  mind  to  distinguish  it  from  every  other,  and  adequately 
to  define  what  its  content  is. 

Mathematical  propositions  of  extent  are  such  as  these :  Trian- 
gles are  plane  or  spherical ;  and  each  of  these  is  acute,  obtuse, 
or  right-angled.  For  the  same  reason  that  mathematical  defi- 
nitions are  exhaustive,  mathematical  divisions  are  known  to  be 
complete.  As  the  first  are  exhaustive,  on  account  of  the  limited 
number  of  the  elements  involved,  it  follows,  that  all  the  subdivi- 
sions which  depend  upon  such  elements,  can  be  easily  compassed., 
and  confidently  enumerated  by  the  mind. 

Hamilton  pertinently  observes  :  "  Mathematical,  like  all  other 
reasoning,  is  syllogistic ;  but  here,  the  perspicuous  necessity  of  the 
matter  necessitates  the  correctness  of  the  form ;  we  cannot  reason 
wrong." 

Axioms  are  prominently  employed  in  mathematical  reasoning. 
Axioms  differ  from  definitions  in  this,  that  they  state  the  neces- 
sary relations  that  are  involved  in  the  nature  or  application  of  all 
the  concepts  of  quantity  as  such,  whereas  the  definiton  expan'ds 
the  content  or  extent  of  some  special  concept. 

Axioms  are  of  two  species,  the  analytic  and  the  synthetic. 
Examples  of  analytic  axioms  are  such  propositions  as  the  fol- 
lowing, '  the  whole  is  greater  than  its  part,'  and  '  things  that  are 
equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to  one  another.1 

They  are  called  analytic  propositions  as  contrasted  with  synthe- 
tic, because,  as  it  is  contended,  they  evolve  or  explicate  in  the 
predicate  what  is  impliedly  known  or  assumed  in  the  subject. 

There  is  another  class  of  axioms,  such  as  these :  Two  straight 
lines  cannot  inclose  a  space:  Two  or  more  parallel  Hues,  if  pro- 
duced ever  so  far  in  either  direction,  can  never  meet.  These 
examples  apply  to  geometrical  quantity  only.  These  are  clearly 
synthetical  propositions.  Whatever  may  be  true  of  those  of  the 
other  class,  in  axioms  of  this  sort  the  predicate  contains  mat  er 
which  the  subject  does  not  imply.  And  yet  these  propositions 


§  229.  REASONING. — VARIETIES  OF  DEDUCTION.  383 

are  self-evident  and  intuitively  true.  They  cannot  and  need  not 
be  demonstrated. 

The  question  has  been  earnestly  agitated  whether  the  axioms 
or  the  definitions  are  the  foundations  of  geometrical  reasoning. 
It  has  been  very  generally  held  that  the  axioms  are  the  real  prin- 
cipia  upon  which  such  reasoning  depends :  that  is,  that  they  are 
the  unproved  but  assumed  major  premises  of  which,  with  certain 
minor  premises  furnished  by  the  definitions,  all  those  syllogisms 
are  constructed  that  make  up  the  demonstrations  of  geometry. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  only  kind  of  axioms  to  which  this  ques- 
tion can  apply,  is  the  first  of  the  two  classes  above  cited,  the  so- 
called  analytic  axioms.  Those  of  the  second  class,  all  would 
concede,  are  as  truly  principles  as  are  the  definitions ;  i.  e.,  they 
are  as  well  fitted  to  serve  as  major  premises  for  syllogisms. 

The  method  after  which  the  demonstrations  are  conducted 
by  Euclid,  has  lent  a  decided  support  to  this  view.  In  all  these 
demonstrations,  these  axioms  are  constantly  cited  as  major 
premises  for  the  truth  of  the  conclusions  which  are  derived  from 
them.  The  arguments  are  in  substance  as  follows :  All  things 
that  are  equal  to  the  same  thing,  are  equal  to  one  another.  The 
case  of  the  equality  of  the  two  lines  or  angles  A,  and  B,  to  a  third 
C,  is  a  case  of  the  kind.  Therefore,  this  is  a  case  of  their  being 
equal  to  one  another. — A  is  equal  to  B. 

Against  this  doctrine  cf.  Locke,  Essay,  B.  iv.  c.  vii.  §  10.  JReid, 
Essays  on  the  Intel.  Powers,  Essay  vi.  chaps,  v.  and  vii.  Princi- 
pal Campbell,  Philosophy  of  Rhetoric,  B.  i.  c.  v.  §  1.  Dugald 
Stewart,  Elements,  Part  ii.  subd.  i.  c.  i.  sec.  i.  (1)  and  (2). 

For  our  present  purpose,  it  is  of  little  consequence  to  deter- 
mine whether  the  axioms  or  the  definitions  are  or  are  not  the 
foundations  of  geometrical  deduction.  In  the  one  case  we  begin 
our  series  of  deductions  with  certain  general  truths  that  are 
more  extensive  than,  and  are  prior  to  the  subject-matter  of 
geometry.  In  the  other  we  find  our  first  propositions  in  the  de- 
finitions, or  the  additional  truths  which  the  definitions  introduce 
and  make  possible. 

§  229.  It  is  more  important  to  observe  that  what 

.  f        f  The  construc- 

is  called  geometrical  demonstration  is  very  far  from  tion  of  geome- 

,     ,      ..  A  ,.      .  trical      figures. 

being  a  process  of  pure  deduction.  As  preliminary  to  Auxiliary  iin«s, 
this  and  coincident  with  almost  every  one  of  its  steps, 


384  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  229. 

a  process  is  carried  forward  of  preparing  the  materials  concerning 
which  we  reason,  so  that  they  can  be  brought  into  comparison. 
This  is  ordinarily  termed  the  construction  of  the  diagram  or  the 
drawing  of  auxiliary  lines.  In  some  cases  these  constructions 
are  very  easy  and  simple,  in  others  they  are  difficult  and  com- 
plex. In  all  cases  they  task  the  power  of  ready  invention,  and 
fertile  suggestion.  The  preparation  of  the  diagram  for  the  de- 
monstration of  the  47th  prop.  1st  book,  of  Euclid's  Geometry, 
is  no  inconsiderable  achievement  of  inventive  skill  and  sagacity. 

It  ought  to  be  observed,  that  in  order  to  be  certain  of  the 
possibility  of  drawing  some  of  these  lines,  and  of  the  character 
of  the  figures  which  will  result  from  them,  we  can  neither 
depend  upon  the  axioms  or  definitions,  nor  upon  the  results  of 
previous  reasoning  processes,  but  must  rely  solely  upon  our 
direct  intuition  of  the  properties  and  relations  of  the  figures 
which  our  postulates  enable  us  to  draw,  and  which  our  defini- 
tions describe.  We  know,  for  example,  by  intuition  only,  that 
we  can  connect  the  opposite  extremities  of  a  square  or  rectangle, 
and  that  the  diagonal  thus  drawn  will  divide  the  rectangle  into 
two  triangles  with  a  common  base.  In  constructing  a  rectangle, 
we  must  presuppose  the  space  which  we  circumscribe,  and  some 
of  the  consequent  relations  to  it  and  to  one  other  of  its  bound- 
ing lines.  So  soon  as  we  divide  this  space,  we  add  to  this  know- 
ledge also,  by  direct  inspection  or  intuition.  The  same  is  true 
whenever  we  add  to  or  divide  any  construction,  whether  one 
that  is  original  or  superinduced. 

It  should  be  noticed,  that  in  all  cases  of  complicated  geometri- 
cal construction,  the  completion  of  the  diagram  is  the  result,  to  a 
large  degree,  of  a  tentative  process.  We  draw  a  line,  and  then 
observe  whether  the  new  relations  brought  into  existence  by  this 
construction  may  serve  as  connecting  links  between  the  proposed 
conclusion  and  its  proof.  The  new  constructions  which  we  form  for 
each  new  theorem,  furnish  fresh  material  for  yet  other  processes 
of  deduction,  and  thus  enlarge  the  material  by  successive  syn- 
theses, to  which  our  deductions  can  be  applied.  The  new  truths 
which  these  new  constructions  enable  us  to  discover  are  intuitively 
assented  to,  both  in  their  conditions  and  their  evidence.  They  are 
axiomatic,  and  similar  to  the  axioms  of  the  second  class  which  we 
have  already  considered.  The  number  of  such  axiomatic,  i.  e., 


§  230.  REASONING. — VARIETIES  OF  DEDUCTION.  385 

obvious  truths  made  possible  by  the  endless  variety  of  geometrical 
constructions,  is  well  nigh  unlimited.  With  every  new  construction, 
some  new  relation  is  evoked,  and  its  truth  is  intuitively  assented  to. 
Moreover,  in  geometrical  reasoning  the  several  quantities  must 
be  measured  by  or  with  one  another.  The  diagrams  are  con- 
structed, and  the  needful  auxiliary  lines  are  drawn  solely  in  order 
that  the  parts  may  be  so  prepared  that  one  may  be  compared 
with  another.  As  the  triangle  is  the  simplest  figure  that  can  be 
constructed,  the  original  measurement  to  which,  in  the  last 
analysis,  all  others  are  reduced,  and  by  which  they  are  tested,  is 
that  of  two  triangles.  In  Playfair's  Geometry  the  first  act  of 
demonstration  and  that  to  which  all  the  remaining  attach  them- 
selves and  are  referred,  is  that  of  the  fourth  Prop,  by  which  two 
triangles  are  superimposed  on  one  another.  The  possibility  of 
comparing  two  triangles  being  established,  we  have  the  means  of 
comparing  all  those  plane  figures  which  can  be  resolved  into 
equal  triangles.  This  may  be  considered  another  auxiliary  step 
in  geometrical  demonstration.  It  is  obvious  that  this  or  any 
act  of  measurement  is  not  deduction  proper. 

§  230.  After  the  material  has  been  prepared  we  proceed  to  apply 
to  it  the  processes  of  geometrical  demonstration.     How  we  do  this       Geometrical 
•can  be  understood  most  satisfactorily  by  an  example.  plained  by  an 

In  the  fifth  proposition  of  Playfair's  Geometry,  B.  I.,  it  is  proposed    example. 
to   prove  that  the  angles  at  the  base  of  an  isosceles  triangle  are 
equal.     The  first  step  is  to  prepare  the  diagram  by  producing  the  two  sides,  A  B, 
and  A  C,  indefinitely  towards  D  and  E. 

In  the  lines  thus  drawn,  the  two  points  F  and  G  are  taken 
at  equal  distances  from  A,  and  B  G  and  C  F  are  joined.  It 
is  manifest,  '  to  the  eye,'  as  we  say,  that  we  have  two  pairs 
of  triangles,  A  B  G,  A  C  F,  B  C  G  and  C  B  F.  The  first 
two  have  the  two  corresponding  sides  equal — the  one  by  con- 
struction, the  other  by  the  addition  of  equals  to  equals — as 
also  the  included  angle  common.  By  deduction  from  the 
conclusion  of  the  fourth  proposition,  the  bases  C  F  and  B  G 
and  the  several  angles  are  proved  to  be  equal.  These  two 
conclusions  give,  in  the  two  smaller  triangles,  one  side  of ,« 
each  equal;  by  subtraction  of  the  equals  A  B  and  A  C  from 
the  equals  A  F  and  A  G,  the  sides  B  F  and  C  G  are  equal ;  that  the  included 
angles  included  between  the  equal  sides  of  each  are  equal  was  proved  from  the 
fourth  proposition.  It  follows  by  the  same  syllogism  upon  the  same  premises, 
that  the  angles  EOF  and  G  B  C  are  equal.  These  equals  are,  then  taken  from 
the  equals  A  C  F  and  A  B  G,  and  the  remainders  are  equal.  These  are  the  angles 
at  the  base  of  the  isosceles  triangle. 

17 


386  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §231. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  syllogisms  employed  are  either  five  or  two,  according  as 
we  consider  the  axioms  to  be  or  not  to  be  the  foundations  of  geometrical  deduc- 
tion. There  are  three  cases  in  which  the  axioms,  if  equals  be  added  to  or  taken 
from  equals,  are  employed  in  what,  in  form,  appear  to  be  syllogisms.  In  the 
other  two  the  conclusion  of  ihe  fourth  proposition  is  made  the  major  premise,  and 
the  conclusion  is  regularly  deduced.  In  all,  we  have  a  general  proposition  for  a 
major  premise,  a  particular  case  for  the  minor,  and  the  conclusion  made  up  of  the 
major  and  minor  term.  That  is.  there  are  in  all  these  cases,  formal  syllogisms; 
but  there  is  this  difference ;  in  the  one  case  the  axiom  adds  no  force  to  the  belief 
of  the  conclusion,  because  this  would  be  equally  clear  to  the  mind  without  it ;  in 
the  other,  we  are  referred  to  the  nature  of  the  concept  or  construction — as  of  two 
triangles  equal  in  two  sides  and  the  included  angle — as  necessarily  involving 
equality  in  the  remaining  side  of  each.  The  reason  for  the  conclusion  is  the  pro- 
perties of  such  triangles  as  constructed  by  the  mind,  by  means  of  the  known  pro- 
perties of  space.  It  would  be  a  trivial  fiction  to  say  that  the  relation  of  equality 
requires  that  two  things  equal  to  the  same  thing  should  be  equal  to  one  another; 
but  this  must  be  said,  if  the  axiom  is  a  reason  for  the  special  applications  of  itself. 

But  again  :  we  demonstrate  t)r  deduce  in  this  way  by  these  two  concatenated  syl- 
logisms, that  the  angles  at  the  base  of  this  individual  isosceles  triangle  are  equal 
to  one  another.  But  we  see  at  once  that  it  must  follow  that  whatever  is  true  of 
this  or  any  isosceles  triangle  must  be  true  of  every  one.  Hence  we  generalize 
this  conclusion  directly,  and  make  it  ready  to  be  used  as  the  major  premise  of 
another  syllogism.  This  is  the  last  step  in  the  process  of  a  geometrical  demon- 
stration. It  is  not  by  induction  proper,  however,  that  we  pass  from  the  indi- 
vidual to  the  general,  for  the  reason  that  the  properties  and  relations  of  space 
which  are  used  in  an  individual  construction  in  space,  do  not  like  those  of  matter 
indicate  one  another  with  more  or  less  probability,  but  each  requires  the  other  by 
an  unavoidable  necessity  discerned  by  intuition. 

The  processes  of  arithmetic  and  algebra  are  scarcely  considered  processes  of 
deduction  at  all,  not  because  deduction  is  not  present  and  actually  performed,  but 
because  it  plays  so  inconsiderable  a  part  in  reaching  the  results.  The  chief  con- 
cern of  the  mind  in  performing  problems  of  this  sort,  is  to  invent  such  combina- 
tions and  to  apply  such  methods  of  dealing  with  them,  as  will  bring  to  pass  the 
result — which  is  usually  to  establish  a  new  equation  between  elements  that  can 
be  evolved  from  the  data.  The  mind  seeks  to  change  the  expression  of  the 
quantities  given,  so  that  they  can  be  advantageously  compared.  The  mind  de- 
duces only  when  it  applies  some  rule  or  principle,  or  uses  a  formula  previously 
determined  to  be  true  of  all  members  or  all  objects  similarly  situated  with  the 
individual  case.  Both  these  processes  are  similar  in  principle  to  the  expedient 
of  devising  auxiliury  lines  in  geometry.  The  result  is  readily  generalized. 

§  231.  The  third  species  of  deduction  is  the  formal 
or  purely  logical,  such  as  is  employed  'm  immediate 
syllogisms.   Here  the  reason  for  the  conclusion  is  found 
in  some  one  of  the  necessary  relations  of  the  concept,  whenever 
such  a  relation  can  be  applied  or  viewed  as  a  cause  necessitating 
a  new  relation  expressed  in  the  conclusion.     Inasmuch  as  there 


§  231.  REASONING. — VARIETIES  OF  DEDUCTION.  387 

are  several  such  essential  relations,  a  variety  of  such  deauctions 
is  possible.  Syllogisms  of  this  sort  are  called  by  Kant  syllogisms 
of  the  understanding,  because  the  understanding  is  defined  by 
Kant  to  be  the  logical  faculty.  These  conclusions  are  sometimes 
styled  immediate,  in  contrast  with  those  which  are  mediate, 
because  they  are  built  upon  a  single  proposition,  or  more  exactly 
because  no  middle  term  is  present  or  provided  in  the  ordinary  ac- 
ceptation of  the  word.  The  major  premise  is  derived  from  an 
expansion  in  language  of  those  relations  which  necessarily  be- 
long to  the  concept,  and  may  be  expressed  in  purely  formal  pro- 
positions. These  arguments  are  usually  treated  in  books  of  logic 
under  the  title  of  the  Conversion  and  Opposition  of  Propositions, 
and  often  are  not  treated  as  syllogisms  at  all. 

The  following  is  an  example,  usually  cited  as  of  subaltern 
opposition:  All  islands  were  originally  attached  to  a  continent; 
therefore,  some  islands,  or  this  island,  e.  g.,  Ireland,  was  originally 
attached  to  a  continent.  The  argument  in  this  form  is  an  enthy- 
meme.  In  order  that  it  may  be  expanded  into  a  syllogism  the 
major  premise  is  required :  it  becomes — whatever  is  true  of  all 
islands  is  true  of  some  islands;  it  is  true  of  all  islands  that  they 
were  attached  to  a  continent ;  therefore  it  is  true  of  some  islands 
that  they  belonged  to  a  continent. 

We  assert,  No  man  is  perfect ;  therefore,  some  men,  or  this  man 
is  not  perfect :  the  major  premise  being  whatever  is  denied  of  all 
Mien  is  denied  of  some  men,  or  this  man. 

In  conversion  we  conclude  from  All  men  are  mortal,  that  some 
mortals  are  men.  From  No  man  is  perfect,  that  no  perfect  being 
is  a  man,  and  so  on  throughout  the  cases  that  are  possible,  the 
major  premise  in  each  instance  being  a  periphrastic  proposition, 
as  the  predicate  affirmed  of  all  men  may  be  the  subject  when 
limited  by  some,  etc. 

It  might  seem  at  first  that  the  proper  major  premise  in  such  cases,  should  be 
the  more  general  axiom,  as  in  the  first  example;  whatever  is  true  of  any  whole  is 
true  of  its  parts.  But  on  a  second  thought  we  correct  ourselves  by  observing, 
that  in  such  a  case  no  middle  term  can  possibly  be  devised  to  connect  the  major 
with  the  minor.  The  same  is  true,  only  more  eminently,  of  what  are  called  the 
Jaws  of  thought — as  the  laws  of  identity,  of  contradiction,  and  of  the  excluded 
middle  ;  no  matter  is  furnished  in  such  propositions,  by  which  we  can  proceed  to 
a  conclusion.  They  are  not  laws  of  thought  in  the  sense  of  being  major  premises 
for  deduction.  They  are  rather  generalizations  of  the  particular  processes  which 


388  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT,  §  232. 

the  mind  performs,  and  of  the  relations  which  they  involve.     They  are  simply 
rules  for  logical  consistency  (cf.  $  270). 

The  force  of  the  argument  in  all  these  cases  is  found  in  the 
essential  nature  of  the  concept,  as  involving  certain  relations, 
e.  g.,  of  the  whole  to  its  part,  of  the  subject  to  its  predicate,  and  of  the 
positive  to  its  negative.  But  the  nature  of  the  concept  is  but 
another  name  for  the  properties  or  relations  which  the  mind  ne- 
cessarily conceives  every  concept  as  possessing,  which  the  inind 
must  necessarily  think  it  as  being,  or  as  able,  in  other  relations,  to 
effect  or  evolve.  The  purely  logical  properties  or  relatiom  are 
viewed  as  causes  of  what  is  expressed  in  the  conclusion,  like  phy- 
sical causes  and  mathematical  relations,  and  so  far  forth  are  used 
by  the  mind  as  the  reasons  of  the  conclusions  which  it  accepts. 

5  232.  The  foregoing  analysis  of  the  varieties  of 

Two  elements  ,        .  .  ,...,, 

in  most  acts  of  deduction  req  uires  us  to  distinguish  that  part  of  the 

deduction.  ,  .   ,  .  .,.  „  . 

process  which  is  preparative  or  auxiliary,  from  that 
which  is  simply  and  strictly  deductive.  That  which  is  characteristic 
of  each  one  of  these  varieties  is  derived  from  the  elements  and  ma- 
terials which  these  subsidiary  processes  furnish  for  deduction.  But 
in  actual  reasoning,  the  two  operations  are  so  intimately  blended 
together,  that  it  is  not  easy  to  distinguish  the  one  from  the  other. 
For  example,  in  probable  reasoning,  the  force  and  conclusiveness 
of  the  argument  may  seem  to  turn  chiefly  upon  the  facts  of  obser- 
vation and  testimony  which  establish  the  minor  premise,  or  the 
inductions  which  support  the  major,  and  very  little  upon  the  act 
of  bringing  the  two  together  in  the  relations  of  an  argument. 
As  soon  as  the  auxiliary  and  preliminary  steps  are  taken,  the 
conjunction  of  the  parts  as  major  and  minor,  naturally  occurs  to 
the  mind,  and,  with  it,  the  inevitable  conclusion.  In  geometrical 
reasoning,  as  we  have  seen,  the  establishment  of  the  conclusion 
sought  for,  depends  almost  entirely  on  the  skilful  suggestion  of 
the  appropriate  auxiliary  lines,  and  the  orderly  concatenation  of 
the  several  arguments,  so  that  the  result  may  spring  forth  of  it- 
self. In  common  life,  the  issue  of  the  reasoning  depends  upon 
the  establishment  of  certain  facts,  in  connection  with  certain 
principles.  Upon  the  proof  of  the  facts  and  the  enforcement 
and  illustration  of  the  principles,  the  reasoner  expends  the  re- 
lources  of  memory  and  invention,  of  wit  and  eloquence.  The 


§  233.  REASONING. — VARIETIES  OP  DEDUCTION.  389 

facts  being  established  and  the  principles  received,  the  argument 
enforces  itself. 

Skill  in  the  invention  of  middle  terms,  or  media  of  proof,  is  an 
art  in  respect  to  which  men  differ  more  widely  than  in  re~ 
spect  to  merely  logical  consistency,  or  the  capacity  to  derive  con- 
clusions from  their  premises.  "Upon  skill  and  aptness  in  this,  is 
founded  very  largely  the  estimate  in  which  the  ability  of  a  rea- 
soner  is  held.  But  this  affluence  of  invention  and  skill  in  selec- 
tion must  also  be  attended  with  a  ready  tact  in  forecasting  all  the 
results  of  a  multitude  of  deductive  processes,  when  applied  to  all 
the  cases  which  invention  suggests.  There  must  also  be  present 
the  capacity  to  hold  the  attention  evenly  and  steadily  in  long 
and  closely-connected  series  of  deductions,  all  which  capacities 
come  only  from  the  special  development,  and  usually  from  the 
patient  and  practiced  training  of  the  philosophical  powers. 
When  these  habits  are  matured  by  such  training,  the  soul  learns 
to  act  with  the  precision  and  rapidity  of  intuition.  It  must  so 
act  in  order  to  reason  with  success  when  pressed  by  a  powerful 
antagonist,  in  the  haste  and  excitement  of  debate,  or  under  the 
unexpected  and  ingenious  assaults  or  defences  which  are  elicited 
in  an  active  controversy. 

The  establishment  of  the  principles  or  the  reasons  which  are 
involved  and  required  in  an  argument,  is  often  the  point  of  chief 
importance.  Inasmuch  as  the  deductive  power  is  prominently 
employed  here,  the  logical  faculty,  or  power  of  analytic  and  con- 
sistent thinking  is  especially  tasked,  and  superiority  in  this  is  ne- 
cessarily manifest.  The  power  readily  and  surely  to  fall  back 
upon  principles,  and  to  apply  them  to  special  cases  with  apt- 
ness and  force,  is  the  power  which  distinguishes  the  reasoner  from 
the  man  of  extensive  knowledge,  the  man  of  fertile  invention, 
the  man  of  ready  wit,  or  the  man  eloquent  in  description  and 
appeal.  To  this  power  must  be  superadded,  as  it  is  always  sup- 
posed, the  capacity  to  proceed  with  logical  clearness  and  rigor 
from  the  reason  to  the  conclusion.  The  last  marks  the  logician  pro- 
per, as  he  is  contrasted  with  and  distinguished  from  the  reasoner. 

§  233.  This  analysis  also  enables  us  to  answer  the 
question  which  has  been  frequently  agitated,  whether     T 
deduction  adds  to  our  knowledge.     Many  have  con-  In 

tended  that  it  does  not  and  cannot.     They  urge,  that 


390  THE    HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  233. 

if  we  know  the  major  prembe,  we  already  know  the  conclusion ; 
that  when  we  assent  to  the  major,  All  men  are  mortal,  we  have 
already  decided  the  question,  whether  Peter  is  mortal,  and  that 
whatever  advantage  there  may  be  in  employing  an  argument,  the 
argument  does  not  add  to  our  stock  of  knowledge.  We  do  not, 
it  is  urged,  gain  by  it  any  new  truth. 

To  this  argument,  in  the  form  in  which  it  is  urged,  we  might 
reply,  in  the  first  place,  that  if  we  substitute  for  "we  know 
already"  the  phrase  "  we  might  know  if  we  would  think  or  reflect" 
there  would  be  less  reason  to  object  to  it.  The  design  of  reasoning 
is  often  to  lead  a  person  to  reflect  or  think  concerning  the  applica- 
tion of  the  facts  or  principles  to  which  he  assents.  When  a  man 
institutes  a  process  of  deduction,  or  follows  one  presented  by 
another,  one  of  three  things  may  be  true.  First,  he  may  never 
have  accepted,  through  ignorance  or  want  of  thought,  the  major 
premise,  or,  at  least,  not  so  distinctly  as  to  be  ready  to  apply  it 
in  every  particular  case.  But  he  may  be  induced  to  accept  it  for 
the  first  time  by  the  excitement  of  the  occasion—^,  e.,  by  the  use 
or  application  which  is  now  to  be  made  of  it.  Second,  he  may 
never  before  have  accepted  the  minor  so  as  to  be  able  to  connect 
it  with  the  general  truth,  even  though  it  had  already  been 
familiar  to  his  knowledge  and  assent.  Third,  he  may  have  ac- 
cepted both  major  and  minor,  but  may  never  have  thought  of 
the  two  together  so  as  to  perceive  that  relation  between  the  two 
which  involves  the  conclusion. 

In  the  second  place,  an  argument  is  usually  addressed  to  a 
person  who  has  not  accepted  a  conclusion,  by  a  person  who  has 
accepted  it.  The  one  who  uses  the  argument,  knows  this  conclu- 
sion to  be  true.  The  person  to  whom  it  is  addressed  has  not  as- 
sented to  it.  The  argument  is  used  to  make  him  give  this 
assent.  In  some  sense  of  the  phrase,  it  adds  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  person  whom  it  convinces.  It  ordinarily  does  this  by 
leading  him  so  to  reflect,  that  he  enlarges  his  knowledge  or  his 
belief.  First,  it  may  be,  he  is  led  to  accept  the  major;  next,  he 
assents  to  the  minor  ;  and  last  of  all,  he  is  induced  so  to  connect 
the  two,  that  he  himself  is  convinced,  and  of  himself  accepts  the 
conclusion. 

Reasoning  is,  in  fact,  constantly  employed  to  enlarge  the 
knowledge  of  men.  It  would  be  idle,  as  it  might  seem,  to  con- 


§  234.  INDUCTIVE  REASONING  OR  INDUCTION.  391 

tend  that  the  student  of  a  system  of  geometry  does  not  increase 
his  stock  of  knowledge,  or  that  all  the  knowledge  which  he  gains 
is  acquired  by  induction  or  intuition.  Deduction  is  constantly 
employed  as  a  means  of  instruction  in  all  departments  of  science, 
and  it  would  seem  with  the  greatest  advantage  to  those  whose 
knowledge  it  augments. 

But  knowledge  is  as  truly  concerned  with  the  apprehension  of 
relations,  as  with  the  cognition  of  facts.  New  or  additional 
knowledge  is  as  properly  the  knowledge  under  new  relations  of 
facts  already  known  or  very  familiar,  as  the  acquisition  of  new 
facts  by  observation,  testimony,  or  induction.  Deduction  applies 
reasons  to  facts  or  events,  in  order  to  establish  their  truth,  or  ex- 
plain their  existence  or  occurrence.  It  is  often  required,  as  we 
know,  to  convince  ourselves  or  others  that  a  fact  or  event  must 
have  been  true  or  must  have  occurred.  The  man  that  is  con- 
vinced by  such  a  process  of  the  reality  of  any  fact,  must  thereby 
have  gained  new  knowledge  of  its  relations. 

Or,  again,  the  process  is  applied  to  explain  why  it  occurred ; 
the  fact  or  event  being  admitted,  the  reason  for  its  occurrence  is 
asked  for-  When  such  reason  is  given  by  the  application  of  the 
deductive  process,  the  fact  is  known  in  a  new  relation.  The 
knowledge  of  the  fact  as  explained  by  its  reason  is  certainly  new 
knowledge.  Deduction  applies  general  causes,  elements  or  pro- 
perties, as  reasons  to  confirm  or  explain  events  and  facts.  It  not 
only  adds  to  our  knowledge,  but  it  adds  knowledge  of  a  kind 
which  is  eminent  for  its  worth  and  dignity — thought-knowledge  of 
the  most  exalted  character— knowledge  in  the  light  of  the  prin- 
ciples and  laws  which  govern  and  explain  all  individual  facts 
and  events. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

INDUCTIVE   REASONING   OR   INDUCTION. 

§  234.  We  have  seen  that,  in  ord^r  to  perform 
those  processes  of  deduction  which  relate  to  facts  and 
events— the  processes  called  probable  reasoning— the  Serd.perly 
mind  must  be  furnished  with  major  premises  or  gen- 
eral propositions. 


392  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  234. 

The  process  by  which  we  gain  the  truths  thus  applied,  is  called 
induction  or  inductive  reasoning.  We  proceed  to  inquire :  What 
is  the  nature  of  this  process  ?  What  are  the  conditions  and 
grounds  of  its  exercise?  What  the  assumptions  on  which  it 
rests?  What  are  its  applications  to  human  knowledge,  and 
what  the  rules  for  its  successful  use? 

Induction  is  usually  defined  as  the  deriving  generals  from  parti- 
culars ;  and  in  this  is  contrasted  with  deduction,  in  which  we  are 
said  to  proceed  from  generals  to  particulars.  This  definition  is 
correct  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  it  is  by  no  means  precise  or  exhaust- 
ive. There  are  many  processes  conceivable,  in  which  we  derive 
generals  from  particulars  which  are  not  processes  of  induction. 
For  example :  We  observe  ten  oranges,  and,  noticing  them  one 
by  one,  perceive  a  common  likeness  of  qualities.  We  gather  the 
results  of  our  observations  into  the  general  judgment  or  proposi- 
tion :  all  these  oranges  are  slightly  oval,  or  light  yellow,  or  yellow 
mottled  with  green.  It  is  obvious  that  such  a  judgment,  though 
general  and  derived  from  particulars,  has  not  been  gained  by 
induction.  This  is  further  obvious  from  the  fact,  that  such  propo- 
sitions cannot  be  applied  in  deduction.  To  seek  thus  to  apply 
them,  would  be  an  idle  form,  attended  by  no  advantage,  and 
leading  to  no  conviction.  If  all  that  we  know  or  had  learned 
was  simply :  all  swans  hitherto  observed  were  white,  or  all  men 
observed  or  reported  have  died,  we  should  already  have  included 
in  the  major  premise  the  truth  of  the  conclusion,  and  it  would 
be  idle  to  expand  the  knowledge  already  gained  into  a  form  of 
deduction.  With  such  general  propositions  as  premises,  deductive 
reasoning  would  be  either  superfluous  or  impertinent. 

"  If  induction,"  says  Galileo,  "  must  go  through  every  indi- 
vidual instance,  it  would  be  either  useless  or  impossible ;  impossi- 
ble if  the  number  of  cases  were  infinite ;  useless,  because  then  the 
universal  proposition  would  add  nothing  new  to  our  knowledge." 

And  yet  inductions  like  these — so-called — have  been  named 
by  some  the  only  perfect  or  truly  logical  inductions.  (Cf.  Sir  Win. 
Hamilton,  Logic,  Lee.  xvii.  §62;  Lee.  xxxiii.  §  108;  Appendix 
vii.)  It  is  sufficient  to  observe  that,  if  such  inductions  are  ex- 
posed to  no  error,  they  contribute  no  truth.  They  are  safe  but 
useless,  for  they  admit  of  no  application,  except  as  a  convenience 
for  the  memory. 


§  234.  INDUCTIVE  REASONING  OR  INDUCTION.  393 

That  which  is  properly  called  induction  is  a  process  of  another 
character.  Examples  of  it  are  such-  as  these.  I  observe  a 
certain  number  of  oranges,  and,  noticing  their  characteristics, 
infer  or  believe  that  all  oranges  have  certain  peculiarities  of 
form,  internal  constitution,  habits  of  growth,  etc.,  etc.  In  like 
manner,  I  infer  all  swans  are  and  must  be  white ;  not  merely  all 
the  swans  that  have  existed,  or  those  which  have  been  observed 
or  described,  but  the  whole  species  in  the  past,  the  present,  and 
the  future.  In  such  cases  we  take  the  examples  which  we  have 
observed,  to  stand  for  or  represent  the  entire  class. 

It  follows  that  judgments  of  induction  differ  from  simple  judg- 
ments, in  certain  important  particulars.  To  return  to  our  first 
example  ;  we  see  ten  oranges  with  certain  well-defined  character- 
istics. We  bring  them  under  their  appropriate  concepts,  and 
judge  or  affirm  these  concepts  of  the  individual  objects.  In  in- 
duction we  proceed  further :  we  add  to  these  simple  judgments 
yet  another,  viz.,  that  what  we  have  found  to  be  true  of  these, 
may  be  received  as  true  of  all  others  like  them.  The  ground  of 
the  first  judgment  is  facts  observed  and  compared.  The  ground 
of  the  second  is  what  is  called  the  analogy  of  nature.  A  judg- 
ment of  induction  is  then  a  judgment  of  comparing  observation, 
enlarged  by  a  judgment  of  analogy.  The  judgment  of  observation 
is  founded  on  observed  similarity.  The  judgment  of  analogy  is 
founded  on  an  interpreted  indication. 

What  is  usually  called  experience,  includes  acts  of  induction. 
Simple  observation  and  judgment  do  not  constitute  what  we 
usually  call  experience ;  for  this  imports  not  only  that  we  have 
made  and  preserved  observations,  but  also  that  we  are  capable  of 
applying  their  results  in  parallel  cases.  This  implies  the  power 
to  discriminate  between  cases  that  are,  and  those  that  are  not 
similar.  Without  this  power  or  discipline,  observation  or  bare 
experience  would  be  possible  but  useless.  For  it  would  enable 
us  simply  to  attain  and  retain  our  knowledge  of  the  past,  but 
never  to  apply  it  to  the  future. 

In  view  of  these  considerations,  the  questions  return  upon  us 
with  augmented  interest  and  importance :  What  is  the  ground, 
what  the  nature,  and  what  are  the  rules  for  a  sound  induction  ? 
They  are  questions  which  have  often  been  asked,  and  not  always 
very  satisfactorily  or  thoroughly  answered.  As  preliminary  to 


394  THE    HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  235. 

the  development  of  the  correct  answers,  and  to  a  satisfactory 
theory  of  induction,  we  may  profitably  consider  a  few  examples 
in  which  the  process  has  been  successfully  applied. 

§  235.  The  inductions  of  common  life  have  already 
of  commoniife   been  noticed.      They  differ  from  the  inductions  of 


science,  in  that  their  results  are  incapable  of  being 
reduced  to  universal  statements  to  which  there  are 
no  exceptions.  Nor  do  they  result  in  the  discovery  of  ultimate 
properties,  agencies,  and  laws.  Their  results  are  seen  in  the 
common  sense  and  common  prudence  which  are  essential  to  the 
performance  of  the  common  acts  and  duties  of  common  life. 
Uncommon  skill  and  readiness  in  interpreting  such  indications 
is  termed  acuteness,  discernment,  sagacity,  and  tact.  Less  than 
the  usual  capacity  to  make  such  inductions  quickly  and  correctly, 
is  denominated  slowness  and  stupidity.  The  average  capacity  is 
called  common  sense,  in  one  of  the  significations  of  this  term. 

The  second  class  of  examples  of  the  process  of  induction  is 
furnished  by  the  discoveries  of  science.  The  inductions  of 
common  life  are  in  one  sense  discoveries,  but  the  indications 
are  so  readily  interpreted  and  the  inferences  are  derived  with  so 
great  unanimity  and  universality,  that  the  intellectual  process 
(or  processes)  by  which  they  are  made,  attracts  little  attention, 
and  is,  therefore,  not  readily  analyzed.  But  when  some  new 
and  wonderful  agent  in  nature  is  brought  to  light,  or  some  new 
law  of  its  acting  is  established,  and  especially  when  the  power  or 
law  is  applied  to  some  brilliant  or  useful  result,  we  inquire 
with  the  greatest  interest,  How  came  the  discoverer  to^think  of 
that  ?  How  did  he  satisfy  himself  that  what  he  thought  was 
true  ?  In  such  cases  we  are  more  likely  to  find  answers  to  our 
questions,  inasmuch  as  the  steps  of  the  process  have  often  been 
slowly  made,  and  the  considerations  which  have  led  to  them 
can  be  distinctly  reproduced. 

We  select,  first  of  all,  the  brilliant  discovery  by  Franklin  of 
the  identity  of  lightning  with  electricity.  With  the  electrical 
agent,  or,  as  it  was  called  in  his  time,  the  electric  fluid,  Franklin 
was  entirely  familiar.  He  was  so  far  master  of  the  methods  of 
developing  it  in  sufficient  quantity  or  intensity,  as  to  be  able  to 
produce  its  ordinary  and  obvious  phenomena,  as  well  a,s  to  ex- 
hibit phenomena  that  had  previously  been  unknown.  He  had 


§  235.  INDUCTIVE  REASONING  OR  INDUCTION.  395 

the  electrical  machine  and  the  Leyden  jar,  and  could  produce 
at  pleasure  the  electrical  light,  and  the  report  following  the  con- 
nection of  bodies  in  opposite  electrical  conditions.  With  these, 
then  somewhat  novel  phenomena,  he  had  become  entirely 
familiar  in  observation  and  thought ;  as  familiar  as  men  in 
common  life  are  with  the  aspect  or  form  of  a  fruit,  or  with  the 
expression  of  a  gentle 'or  vicious  animal.  He  had  also  closely 
observed  the  phenomena  of  lightning,  and  had  noticed  simi- 
larities which  had  never  been  thought  of  before.  The  wave-like 
sheet  and  the  zig-zag  line  and  the  loud  report  were  seen  to  re- 
semble the  less  impressive  phenomena  of  the  machine  and  the 
Leyden  jar ;  and  it  occurred  to  his  thoughts  that  the  similarity 
of  the  phenomena  indicated  a  common  agent  or  power  as  their 
cause.  This  suggestion  was  strengthened  by  the  thought,  that 
clouds  might  be  to  clouds,  or  clouds  to  the  earth,  as  the  opposite 
surfaces  of  the  Leyden  jar.  The  mere  observation  of  simi- 
larities like  these  might  have  satisfied  the  mind  of  Franklin, 
that  the  power  or  fluid  in  the  heavens  must  be  the  same  with 
that  which  could  be  accumulated  by  the  machine  from  the 
earth.  When  at  last  he  succeeded  in  bringing  the  power  in 
question  to  affect  a  small  quantity  of  matter,  when  he  made  it 
to  run  along  an  insulated  kite-string,  to  emit  a  spark,  to  charge 
a  Leyden  jar — in  short,  to  exhibit  not  only  similar  but  the  same 
indications  with  machine  electricity,  the  induction  could  no 
longer  be  doubted.  The  decisive  experiment  proved  the  correct- 
ness of  his  thought. 

Dr.  Black  was  led  to  the  discovery  of  carbonic  acid  gas,  by 
observing  that  caustic  lime  increased  in  weight  when  changed 
into  common  lime,  and  by  inferring  that  this  weight  must  be 
derived  from  some  agent  in  the  atmosphere.  This  suggested 
the  thought  that  the  other  alkalies,  being  like  caustic  lime 
in  other  properties,  were  like  it  also  in  this.  The  experiment 
was  tried,  and  the  suggestion  was  found  to  be  correct.  This  put 
him  upon  the  inquiry  what  the  agent  was  which  entered  into 
combination  with  all  these  substances.  The  inquiry  resulted  in 
the  separation  of  carbonic  acid  gas  as  a  newly-discovered  agent, 
and  the  determination  of  its  properties  and  laws. 

Dalton  is  said  to  have  discovered  the  law  that  chemical  com- 
binations are  effected  by  the  union  of  their  constituent  elements 


396  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §235. 

in  fixed  proportions ;  and  that,  when  a  larger  portion  of  an 
agent,  as  oxygen,  enters  into  such  a  combination,  it  is  invariably 
a  multiple  of  a  smaller.  He  was  led  to  this  by  the  knowledge 
that,  in  some  cases,  a  combination  in  such  proportions  had  in  fact 
been  observed.  Being  a  teacher  of  mathematics  and  accustomed 
to  mathematical  relations,  he  generalized  the  result  of  a  few 
chance  observations  into  a  universal  law  ;  it  "  being  irresistibly 
recommended  by  the  clearness  and  simplicity  which  the  notion 


One  of  the  most  instructive  instances  of  modern  discovery,  is 
that  achieved  by  Sir  Humphrey  Davy,  of  the  metallic  bases  of  the 
alkaline  earths.  The  similarity  in  appearance  and  in  many 
chemical  properties  between  such  alkalies  as  potash,  soda,  and 
lime,  and  the  clearly  identified  oxyds  of  metals,  had  led  to  the 
suggestion,  that  they  were  similar  in  chemical  constitution — i.  e., 
that  they  all  were  oxyds  of  metals.  But  the  metals  believed  in 
do  not  exist  in  nature  in  a  separate  state,  nor  had  they  ever  been 
exhibited  in  separate  form  by  any  agent  of  decomposition  hith- 
erto employed.  The  suggestion  that  there  were  such  metals,  and 
that  they  might  be  evolved,  was  confirmed  by  all  the  indications 
required  as  evidence,  except  their  actual  production.  The  ap- 
plication of  the  galvanic  battery  to  chemical  decomposition,  and 
the  triumphant  success  which  had  attended  its  use,  led  Davy  to 
try  it  upon  the  hitherto  intractable  and  irreducible  potash. 
Under  the  solvent  power  of  this  wondrous  agent,  the  knot  which 
had  never  before  been  unloosed  was  in  an  instant  untied.  At 
the  magic  touch  of  this  new  instrument,  the  little  globe  of  the 
newly-discovered  metal  leaped  into  view,  and  the  happy  sugges- 
tion was  confirmed  and  accepted  as  an  undoubted  fact.  It 
scarcely  needed  an  experiment  to  convince  the  sagacious  inter- 
preter, that  similar  metals  were  encrusted  within  common  lime 
and  soda.  The  discoverer  was  almost  as  certain  before  as  after 
the  battery  was  applied,  that  calcium  and  sodium  would  in  fact 
be  evolved. 

In  the  last  series  of  discoveries  we  notice  the  following  order 
and  progress  of  thought  and  experiment.  First,  the  oxyds  of 
metals  were  observed  to  be  like  the  alkalies  in  certain  important 
properties.  But  the  metallic  oxyds  were  known  to  be  produced 
by  chemical  changes ;  copper,  iron,  etc.,  constantly  undergoing 


§  235.  INDUCTIVE  REASONING  OR  INDUCTION.  397 

this  process  before  our  eyes.  The  two  substances  being  alike  in 
certain  particulars,  it  was  conjectured  that  they  were  alike  in 
others.  If  pure  potassium  could  have  been  found  in  a  sepa- 
rate state,  the  readiest  way  to  determine  the  point  would  have 
been  to  oxydize  the  metal  and  see  whether  the  result  would 
be  potash.  The  next  thing  was  to  cfe-oxydize  it.  This  was  ac- 
complished by  the  agency  of  galvanism.  The  fact  that  galvanic 
agency  could  decompose  chemical  compounds  so  intractable, 
suggested  that  possibly  there  were  none  which  it  could  not  over- 
come. If  this  were  so,  it  would  follow,  that  the  force  which  held 
them  in  union,  must  be  electric.  This  was  established  by  its  ap- 
propriate evidence,  and  is  called  by  Whewell,  "  the  highest  gen- 
eralization at  which  chemical  philosophers  have  yet  arrived." 
Hist.  Inductive  Sciences,  B.  xiv.  c.  10.  The  mental  process  is 
precisely  that  which  is  common  to  every  case  of  Induction.  Cer- 
tain objects  are  seen  to  be  alike  in  certain  properties  or  laws.  It 
is  believed  or  judged  that  similarity  in  these  particulars  indi- 
cates likeness  in  others.  Potash  is  like  iron-rust  in  certain  re- 
spects ;  therefore  it  is  like  iron-rust  in  being  the  oxyd  of  a  metal. 
All  chemical  compounds  are  strikingly  alike  in  certain  parti- 
culars. Certain  of  these  are  separable  by  the  electric  force; 
therefore  all  are  separable  by  this  agency.  But  if  separable 
by  it,  they  are  held  in  union  by  the  same  force. 

From  discoveries  of  this  kind  we  pass  to  those  in  astronomical 
physics — to  the  discoveries  of  Copernicus,  Galileo,  Kepler,  and 
Newton. 

Copernicus  began  by  discovering,  as  it  is  said,  the  heliocentric 
theory  of  the  solar  system.  The  way  in  which  he  was  led  to 
adopt  and  defend  it,  is  described  by  himself.  He  had  found  in 
ancient  authors,  accounts  of  Philolaus  and  others  who  had 
asserted  the  motion  of  the  earth.  "  Then  I  began  to  meditate 
concerning  the  motion  of  the  earth  ;  and  though  it  appeared  an 
absurd  opinion,  yet,  since  I  knew  that  in  previous  times  others 
had  been  allowed  the  privilege  of  feigning  what  circles  they  chose 
in  order  to  explain  the  phenomena,  I  conceived  that  I  also  might 
take  the  liberty  of  trying  whether,  on  the  supposition  of  the 
earth's  motion,  it  was  possible  to  find  better  explanations  than 
the  ancient  ones  of  the  revolution  of  the  celestial  orbs." 

"  Having  then  assumed  the  motions  of  the  celestial  orbs  which 


398  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §235. 

are  hereafter  explained,  by  laborious  and  long  observation  I  at 
length  found  that,  if  the  motions  of  the  other  planets  be  com- 
pared with  the  revolution  of  the  earth,  not  only  their  phenomena 
follow  from  the  supposition,  but  also  that  the  several  orbs  and 
the  whole  system  are  so  connected  in  order  and  magnitude,  that 
no  one  part  can  be  transposed  without  disturbing  the  rest,  and 
introducing  confusion  into  the  universe." 

In  1609  Galileo  constructed  his  telescope,  and  very  soon  dis- 
covered the  satellites  of  Jupiter.  This  at  once  confirmed  the 
Copernican  theory,  by  opening  before  the  eyes  of  men  another 
system  subordinate  to  the  solar,  of  heavenly  bodies  revolving 
about  their  primaries,  thus  giving  an  analogon  of  the  greater. 
The  subsequent  discovery  by  the  same  instrument  of  the  phases 
of  Venus,  at  once  confirmed  the  new  theory  of  the  revolution  of 
the  planets  about  the  sun,  and  answered  an  objection  against  it 
by  explaining  why  Venus  did  not  appear  larger  when  nearer 
the  beholder. 

Copernicus  furnished  the  suggestion,  by  reflecting  on  the  known 
fact,  that  the  apparent  places  of  objects  may  be  accounted  for  by 
the  motion  of  one  or  both,  and  that  the  simplest  solution  or  theory 
was  to  be  preferred.  Galileo,  by  his  telescope,  prepared  the  way  for 
the  experiment,  by  enabling  observers,  in  a  certain  sense,  to  observe 
for  themselves  whether  it  was  the  sun  or  the  earth  which  moved. 

Kepler  prepared  the  way  for  the  discoveries  of  Newton,  by  his 
determination  of  the  orbits  of  some  of  the  planets,  and  the  law 
of  their  motions.  Newton  had  been  himself  familiar  with  the 
law  by  which,  in  obedience  to  terrestrial  gravity,  bodies  fall  to 
the  earth's  surface.  The  first  thought  which  led  to  the  extension 
of  this  agent  to  the  celestial  bodies  occurred  to  him  in  1666.  "As 
he  sat  alone  in  a  garden,  he  fell  into  a  speculation  on  the  power 
of  gravity :  that,  as  this  power  is  not  found  sensibly  diminished  at 
the  remotest  distance  from  the  centre  of  the  earth  to  which  we 
can  rise,  neither  at  the  tops  of  the  loftiest  buildings,  nor  even  on 
the  summits  of  the  highest  mountains,  it  appeared  to  him  reason- 
able to  conclude  that  this  power  must  extend  much  further  than 
Was  usually  thought.  '  Why  not  as  high  as  the  moon  ?'  said  he 
to  himself;  'and,  if  so,  her  motion  must  be  influenced  by  it; 
perhaps  she  is  retained  in  her  orbit  thereby.' "  Upon  this  sug- 
gestion, he  proceeded  to  the  calculation  of  the  deflection  of  the 


§  235.  INDUCTIVE  REASONING  Oil  INDUCTION.  399 

moon  from  a  tangent  to  its  orbit  in  a  single  second ;  it  being 
assumed  that  the  moon  was  at  the  distance  from  the  earth  which 
was  then  received.  The  result  disappointed  him ;  for  he  found 
that  this  deflection  would  be  thirteen  feet,  which  did  not  cor- 
respond with  that  required  by  the  supposition  that  gravity 
deflected  it.  He  laid  his  calculation  aside.  The  subsequent 
discovery  that  the  course  described  by  a  falling  body  is  an  ellipse, 
and  that  the  distance  of  the  moon  from  the  earth  could  be 
correctly  ascertained,  enabled  him  to  accept  his  theory  on  the 
ground  that  it  coincided  with  actual  fact.  The  distance  of  the 
moon  had  previously  been  computed  on  an  assumed  but  mistaken 
dmmeter  of  the  earth.  A  more  accurate  measurement  of  a 
degree  upon  the  earth's  surface  led  to  a  correction  of  the  distance 
of  the  moon,  and  Newton's  theory  was  henceforward  accepted  as 
a  demonstrated  truth.  He  first  conjectured  that  the  extension 
of  a  known  force  from  the  earth  to  the  heavens,  is  possible  and 
rational.  He  asks,  "if  so"  "what  then?"  following  out  his  in- 
duction  by  a  mathematical  deduction.  He  then,  by  other  mathe- 
matical .calculations  decisively  tested  this  deduction,  and  the 
conjectured  agent  was  established  as  a  vera  causa,  and  its  laws 
were  carefully  computed ;  the  true  theory  of  the  heavenly  bodies 
was  forever  settled. 

The  examples  cited  are  sufficient  to  illustrate  the  nature  of  the 
inductive  process.  They  have  been  taken  from  the  physical 
sciences,  not  because  these  differ  essentially  from  those  which 
concern  moral  and  political  subjects,  but  because  they  illustrate 
more  strikingly  the  steps  of  induction.  The  objects  with  which 
they  are  concerned  are  more  interesting  to  the  majority  of  men. 
The  effects  of  discoveries  in  them  are  more  obvious.  The  experi- 
ments and  observations  which  have  led  to  them  are  more 
brilliant  and  startling.  Many  of  their  results  are  permanently 
fixed  in  the  arts  of  life,  both  useful  and  ornamental.  Some  of 
them  are  continually  brought  to  our  thoughts  by  engines  and 
instruments  which  materially  contribute  to  the  convenience  and 
comfort  of  man.  The  telescope,  the  prism,  the  quadrant,  the 
hydraulic  press,  the  steam  engine,  the  galvanic  battery,  are  all 
permanent  memorials  of  what  these  processes  have  wrought,  and 
they  prompt  to  eager  inquiries  after  the  operations  by  which  they 
were  first  constructed  in  thought. 


400  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §236. 

The  attentive  consideration  of  these  examples  proves  that 
induction  in  science  is  substantially  the  same  process  with  in- 
duction in  common  life — that  in  both  cases  it  is  a  process  of  in- 
terpreting indications. 

§  236.  This  assertion  prompts  the  inquiries,  Why  then 
ffiSJsrfVdl  are  the  processes  of  common  induction  so  easy  and  those 
Sff™  "  of  science  so  difficult?  Why  is  the  progress  to  com- 
mon sense  so  easily  and  rapidly  made  in  the  infancy 
and  childhood  of  the  individual,  and  why  have  the  advances  of 
science  been  so  difficult  ?  Why  so  long  delayed  ? — why,  even 
now,  is  it  true  that  in  respect  to  so  many  branches  of  knowledge 
the  race  is  yet  in  its  infancy  ?  To  these  questions  the  following 
answers  can  be  given. 

We  notice  First:  that  in  science,  the  properties  observed,— 
which  are  the  indicia  or  indicators  of  others, — are  less  obtrusive 
than  those  used  in  common  life,  and  are  often  far  removed  from 
common  observation.  To  be  apprehended  even,  they  require 
closer  attention  than  men  in  common  life  are  able  to  give. 

Many  of  these  properties  can  only  be  apprehended  by  some 
nicely  constructed  aid  to  the  powers  of  sense,  or  some  costly  and 
ingeniously  devised  apparatus  ;  to  the  production  of  which  spe- 
cial inventive  sagacity  is  required,  which  sagacity  itself  must 
be  the  fruit  of  many  men  or  generations  which  have  gone 
before. 

Second :  The  inductions  of  common  life  are  founded  on  super- 
ficial and  partly  inaccurate  observations.  Those  of  science  rest 
upon  the  sharpest  analysis.  The  common  observer  observes  facts 
and  detects  principles  in  regard  to  things  or  powers  in  the  gross, 
both  as  they  are  combined  and  operated  in  nature.  He  does 
not  go  far  beyond  the  things  and  phenomena  which  the  common 
necessities  of  life  require  men  to  distinguish.  The  scientific  ob- 
server continually  aims  to  detect  and  separate,  by  a  refined  and 
acute  analysis,  powers  and  agents  which  are  never  divided  except 
by  artificial  appliances, — and  some  of  which  are  never  parted 
even  by  these.  Hence  the  experiments  of  common  sense  and  the 
experiments  of  science,  are  very  different. 

Third:  Many  of  the  inductions  in  science  are  far  more 
general  and  comprehensive  than  the  inductions  of  common 
life.  Many  of  the  subtle  agents  or  laws  which  science  detects, 


§  236.  INDUCTIVE  REASONING  OR  INDUCTION.  401 

are  far  more  general  and  extensive  than  those  which  observation 
discerns. 

Consequently  they  furnish  the  grounds  for  more  varied  induc- 
tions. They  can  be  applied  to  explain  a  greater  number  of  indivi- 
dual phenomena.  They  suggest  very  many  possible  theories.  They 
incite  to  a  manifold  greater  number  of  experiments.  When  any 
such  comprehensive  power  or  attribute  is  established,  it  can  be 
used  in  a  large  number  of  deductions. 

Fourth :  One  of  the  distinguishing  peculiarities  of  scientific  in- 
ductions is  found  in  the  circumstance  that  they  are  so  widely  and 
severely  mathematical. 

The  relations  of  space  and  number  are  capable  of  being  af- 
firmed of  every  material  agent,  and  hence  when  any  one  is 
found  to  exist  and  act  according  to  such  relations,  we  have  afj 
once  the  occasion  and  means  of  a  very  comprehensive  generali- 
zation. The  language  of  mathematics  is  the  most  precise  and  in- 
telligible, the  most  easily  communicated,  and  the  most  readily  un- 
derstood of  all  language.  The  tests  of  measure,  weight,  and 
quantity  are  the  most  easily  applied  of  all  tests.  The  sciences 
of  space  and  number  are  also  capable  of  the  clearest,  the  most 
convincing,  and  the  most  fruitful  of  deductions,  and  hence  so  far 
as  they  can  be  legitimately  applied,  they  can  most  readily  test 
experiments  and  record  their  results. 

Fifth:  Science  is  necessarily  more  a  growth  than  any  other 
species  of  knowledge.  One  discovery  not  only  in  fact  prepares 
the  way  for  another  in  the  actual  history  and  order  of  man's  at- 
tainments, but  by  the  necessary  dependence  of  one  discovered 
law  or  agent  upon  another.  The  discovery  of  the  law  of  uni- 
versal gravitation  was  in  the  nature  of  the  case  impossible  with- 
out the  aid  of  pure  Geometry,  Algebra,  the  Calculus,  and  the  laws 
of  Mechanics.  Optics,  with  the  use  and  the  invention  of  the 
telescope,  had  been  in  part  developed  before  and  in  part  perfected 
by  Newton,  before  they  could  be  applied  by  him  to  this  particular 
discovery.  In  almost  every  great  induction,  many  of  the  sci- 
ences and  arts  are  laid  under  contribution.  All  the  previous 
steps  are  presupposed  when  a  single  forward  step  is  to  be  taken. 

This  is  true  only  to  a  very  limited  degree  of  the  inductions  of 
common  life.  The  well-qualified  and  well-trained  man  can  with 
uo  great  difficulty  develop  of  himself  much  that  the  race  has 


402  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  236. 

gained  by  common  sense  and  observation,  or  can  appropriate 
and  master  it  with  ease.  The  common  sense  of  to-day  in  a  re- 
fined and  educated  community  in  England  or  America  readily 
appropriates  the  products  which  the  common  sense  and  experi- 
ence of  another  generation  had  matured  and  preserved  in  lan- 
guage, traditions,  manners  and  institutions.  For  all  .these  are 
taken  up  by  the  mind  with  marvellous  ease,  and  require  but  little 
of  that  discipline,  which  the  mastery  of  the  circle  of  those  sci- 
ences which  are  necessary  for  success,  imposes  upon  the  dis- 
coverer. The  difference  is  slight  between  the  common  sense 
of  Socrates  and  the  common  sense  of  the  honest  and  independ- 
ent observer  of  the  nineteenth  century,  compared  with  the 
immense  disparity  in  the  amount  of  positive  knowledge  possessed 
by  the  stuolent  of  Physics  in  Socrates'  time  and  in  our  own. 

These  considerations  we  think  sufficiently  explain  the  differ- 
ences which  exist  between  the  inductions  of  science  and  those  of 
common  life,  and  establish  the  truth  that  the  process  is  sub- 
stantially the  same  in  each.  These  differences  are  fully  accounted 
for  by  the  difference  in  the  subject-matter,  without  requiring  any 
difference  in  the  process  of  interpreting  them. 

Induction  in  both  combines  an  accurate  observation  of  pro- 
perties and  a  sagacious  interpretation  of  what  they  indicate.  But 
precisely  here  arises  the  most  interesting  and  vital  of  questions, 
"  On  what  ground  or  by  what  evidence  do  we  proceed  from  the 
known  to  the  unknown  ?"  We  can  safely  reply,  it  is  not  upon 
the  ground  of  simple  experience.  For  a  long  time  it  was  be- 
lieved that  all  swans  are  white,  for  the  reason  that  no  swan  of 
any  other  color  had  been  observed  or  heard  of.  "  Mankind  were 
wrong,"  says  J.  S.  Mill,  "  in  concluding  that  all  swans  are  white : 
are  we  also  wrong  when  we  conclude  that  all  men's  heads  grow 
above  their  shoulders  and  never  below,  in  spite  of  the  conflicting 
testimony  of  the  naturalist  Pliny  ?  We  have  no  doubt  what  is 
the  correct  answer  to  this  question.  But  why  are  not  men  wrong 
in  rejecting  such  a  story,  and  in  believing  with  assured  confi- 
dence, that  wherever  men  exist,  their  heads  are  riot  beneath  their 
shoulders?  Why  is  a  single  instance,  in  some  cases,  sufficient 
for  a  complete  induction,  while  in  others,  myriads  of  concurring 
instances,  without  a  single  exception  known  or  presumed,  go 
such  a  very  little  way  towards  establishing  an  universal  propo- 


§  237.  INDUCTIVE  REASONING  OR  INDUCTION.  40$ 

sition  ?  Whoever  can  answer  this  question  knows  more  of  the 
philosophy  of  logic  than  the  wisest  of  the  ancients,  and  has 
solved  the  great  problem  of  induction."  Logic,  B.  iii.  c.  3. 

If  we  seek  to  answer  this  question,  we  say  it  is  more  credible^ 
or  reasonable  to  believe  that  swans  should  vary  in  color  than 
that  men  should  vary  so  greatly  in  form.  But  why  is  it  more 
credible?  Some  would  deem  it  sufficient  to  reply  that  in 
most  species  of  animals,  individuals  which  are  alike  in  every 
other  respect  differ  in  color, — in  other  words,  that  it  is  a 
generally  observed  law  that  color  is  very  variable,  while  some 
constant  outline  or  type  of  form  is  uniformly  observed  in  every 
species,  or  at  least  has  never  admitted  a  deviation  so  monstrous 
as  would  be  implied  in  having  the  head  beneath  the  shoulders. 
This  would  be  Mill's  answer  to  his  own  question.  But  this  does 
not  fully  explain  our  confident  assurance  that  it  is  altogether 
incredible  that  a  species  of  men  should  be  so  constructed.  We 
cannot  admit  the  supposition  for  a  moment,  for  the  decisive 
reason  that  men  so  formed  could  not  perform  the  functions  of 
men  with  any  convenience  or  success ;  that  such  a  form  would 
offend  both  the  eye  and  the  mind,  and  would  be  entirely  incom- 
patible with  the  ideal  of  beauty  and  convenience  to  which  we 
assume  that  nature  would  certainly  conform. 

Considerations  of  convenience  and  of  adaptation,  and  even  of 
beauty  and  grace,  go  far  in  such  a  case  toward  deciding  the  question. 
They  give  that  weight  and  force  to  those  "  single  instances  which 
in  some  cases  are  sufficient  for  a  complete  induction,"  and  take  away 
all  force  from  the  "  myriads  of  concurring  instances  "  in  other 
directions.  It  must  be  on  the  ground  of  such  relations  assumed 
a  priori  to  be  true  of  the  whole  universe  of  being  and  to  hold 
good  of  its  properties,  powers,  and  laws,  that  we  proceed  in  all 
our  judgments  of  induction.  These  direct  the  mind  in  inter- 
preting the  indications  furnished  by  observation.  These  prompt 
to  the  questions  which  we  ask  of  nature  in  our  experiments. 
These  suggest  the  hypotheses  by  which  we  account  for  the  phe- 
nomena. These  confirm  all  the  theories  which  we  finally  accept 
as  true. 

§  237.  We  inquire  next,  what  are  some  of  the  The  a  priori 
truths  or  affirmations  which  the  mind  assumes  in  all  Jjjjjjj™,,  ^' 
its  inductions,  and  by  which  it  regulates  its  inquiries  duction- 


404  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §237. 

into  the  properties  and  laws  of  the  physical  universe?  We 
call  these  in  the  present  stage  of  our  discussion  assumptions. 
We  do  not  by  this  imply  that  they  are  not  valid  and  true :  they 
are  logically  necessary  to  the  inductive  process  when  it  is  analyzed. 
We  need  not  here  inquire  whether  they  are  all  ultimate  and 
original  to  the  mind.  It  is  enough  for  our  purpose  to  ascertain 
that  they  are  a  priori  in  relation  to  the  ordinary  processes  of 
inductive  inquiry.  Some  of  them  are  as  follows  : 

(1.)  All  the  objects  with  which  the  mind  concerns  itself  in  its 
inductions,  are  known  as  substances  and  attributes.  It  is  with  the 
properties  or  attributes  of  matter  and  mind,  as  exhibited  through 
phenomena,  that  these  inquiries  are  exclusively  occupied,  whether 
they  are  known  as  qualities,  powers,  or  relations.  Beings  are 
known  to  the  philosopher  by  their  attributes  or  relations ;  it  is 
by  these,  that  they  are  distinguished,  classified,  and  named. 

(2.)  Induction  assumes  and  implies  the  reality  of  the  causative 
energy,  as  necessary  to  explain  the  origination  of  every  begun 
existence,  and  of  all  occurring  phenomena.  Whether  it  investi- 
gates the  powers  of  nature  or  the  laws  of  nature,  it  proceeds 
upon  this  as  a  necessary  assumption.  A  power  in  any  being  or 
agent  is  its  capacity  to  produce  an  effect  under  appropriate  con- 
ditions and  according  to  definite  laws.  The  power  of  heat  to 
expand  metals,  of  a  burning  body  to  explode  gunpowder,  of 
oxygen  to  corrode  metals,  of  the  soul  to  know  objects  knowable, 
and  to  care  for  objects  desirable;  all  express  and  suppose  a 
single  common  relation,  viz.,  the  relation  of  an  energy  thai  is 
causative  of  effects. 

That  this  relation  is  real,  is  assumed  and  implied  in  all  our 
investigations  into  the  unknown.  This  is  true,  if  our  inquiries 
respect  the  ascertainment  of  the  unknown  originator  of  a  known 
effect,  and  result  in  the  discovery  of  such  elements  as  oxygen  or 
hydrogen,  or  of  such  metals  as  potassium  and  aluminium,  or  of 
such  agents  as  gravitation  and  electricity ;  or  if  we  are  still  on  the 
quest,  and  the  cause  or  power  sought  for  is  not  yet  evolved.  The 
same  is  true  if  our  inquiries  are  directed  \p  the  determination  of 
the  laws  or  the  precise  conditions  under  which  an  ascertained 
cause  produces  a  given  effect,  or  to  the  more  definite  statement  of 
the  relations — mathematical  or  otherwise — under  which  these 
conditions  vary  with  a  varying  effect,  as  in  the  determination  of 


§  237.  INDUCTIVE  REASONING  OR  INDUCTION.  405 

the  laws  of  gravitation,  of  chemical  affinity,  or  of  mental  per- 
ception, association,  desire,  and  volition. 

(3.)  Time  and  Space,  with  the  relations  which  they  hold  to  ex- 
tended objects  and  succeeding  events,  are  also  assumed  in  induc- 
tion. So  also  is  the  possibility  of  the  mathematical  constructions 
which  are  conditioned  by  Time  and  Space  ;  in  other  words,  the 
reality  and  nature  of  geometrical  and  arithmetical  quantities, 
their  relations  to  one  another  and  their  varied  applications  to 
concrete  objects  and  phenomena.  These  are  not  only  assumed, 
they  are  put  in  the  fore-front  of  the  whole  scheme  of  modern 
inductive  philosophy.  The  processes  of  mathematical  investi- 
gation are  made  the  models  for  all  scientific  investigation.  Their 
results  are  the  instruments  of  measuring  all  physical  forces  and 
of  formulating  all  physical  laws. 

Gravitation  was  scarcely  determined  to  be  a  force,  till  its 
mathematical  relations  were  expressed  in  the  law  that  it  is  a 
force  varying  inversely  as  the  square  of  the  distance.  The  laws 
of  falling  or  projected  bodies  are  expressed  by  means  of  the  geo- 
metric curves  in  which  they  move,  and  by  the  numbers  which 
describe  their  velocity.  The  pressure  and  flow  of  fluids  are  re- 
duced to  mathematical  expressions.  Chemical  affinity  is  com- 
prehended under  the  wide-reaching  principle  that  different  ele- 
ments unite  in  definite  numerical  proportions,  which  has 
furnished  the  foundation  for  modern  chemical  symbolization. 
The  entire  theory  of  astronomy  is  a  combination  of  mechanics 
and  applied  geometry.  Modern  researches  respecting  light, 
electricity,  and  heat,  have  dared  to  propound  the  theory  that  all 
these  are  different  modes  of  motion,  the  rate  of  whose  vibrations 
determines  these  subtle  and  marvellously  potent  phenomena. 
They  have  at  least  demonstrated  that  the  varying  phenomena  of 
these  so-called  forces  or  agents  are  attended  by  motions  that  can  be 
made  the  test  of  their  presence  and  the  measure  of  their  intensity. 

So  extensively  have  mathematical  relations  been  applied  in 
modern  induction,  that  it  has  been  gravely  urged  on  the  one 
hand  that  spiritual  phenomena  and  forces  can  in  no  way  come 
under  the  inquiries  of  science,  because,  forsooth,  they  cannot  be 
subjected  to  mathematical  relations,  and,  on  the  other,  that  they 
can  and  must  be  subjected  to  these  relations  in  order  that  any 
science  of  spirit  may  exist. 


406  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  237. 

(4.)  Induction  assumes  that  properties  and  laws  which  are 
known,  indicate  and  signify  other  powers  and  laws ;  that  in  these 
indications  nature  is  honest  and  open  in  her  dealings  with  man ; 
in  other  words,  that  she  is  consistent  with  herself,  or  uniform  in 
her  methods  of  revealing  or  suggesting  what  man  is  prompted 
to  interpret  or  explain.  For  example,  we  judge  that  a  certain 
form  or  appearance  in  a  fruit  indicates  a  certain  flavor ;  that  a 
particular  aspect  of  stem  and  branches  signifies  a  habit  of  leaf 
and  fruit ;  that  a  given  expression  of  countenance  betokens  a 
peculiar  disposition  or  temper  in  man  or  beast ;  that  striking 
similarities  of  attributes  in  metals  indicate  a  similar  capacity 
to  be  oxydized ;  that  obvious  and  pervading  similarities  in  phe- 
nomena prove  that  electricity  in  the  earth  is  the  same  agent  as 
the  cause  of  lightning  in  the  heavens ;  that  the  same  power 
which  is  pervasive  enough  to  affect  bodies  near  the  earth,  is  pro- 
bably or  at  least  possibly — in  part  or  solely — the  power  which 
holds  the  moon  in  its  changing  path  around  the  earth. 

It  is  implied  in  the  honesty  or,  which  is  equivalent,  in  the 
significance  or  interpretability  of  nature  that  she  is  also  uniform, 
or  self-consistent  with  herself  from  time  to  time ;  or  in  other 
words,  that  her  laws  and  methods  are  permanent. 

In  other  words,  induction  requires  that  we  assume  that  nature 
is  constant  and  uniform  in  her  agencies,  operations,  and  laws ; 
also  in  her  methods  of  making  these  known  to  the  mind  of  the 
inquirer  into  her  secrets. 

It  might  here  be  asked,  Why  do  we  believe  this  to  be  true  ?  Is 
the  assumption  groundless  and  ultimate,  or  is  it  founded  upon 
some  reason?  It  might  be  said  that  otherwise  we  could  not 
know  or  interpret  nature  at  all :  If  nature  were  not  thus  honest 
and  uniform,  the  human  mind  could  have  no  knowledge  except 
of  individual  things,  or  the  knowledge  acquired  to-day  could  not 
be  relied  on  for  to-morrow.  But  it  might  still  be  inquired,  What 
necessity  is  there  that  we  know  and  generalize  ?  or  more  broadly, 
By  what  right  do  we  presume  that  the  objective  universe  is  so 
constructed  that  the  human  mind  may  know  it  ?  We  say,  "  If 
it  were  not  so,  it  would  not  be  adapted  to  the  mind :  The 
mind  would  feel  impulses  and  use  activities  which  would  find  no 
corresponding  objects :  It  would  be  impelled  to  modes  of  action 
in  generalizing,  interpreting,  in  explaining  and  forecasting,  to 


§  237.  INDUCTIVE  REASONING  OR  INDUCTION.  40V 

which  tnere  would  be  no  corresponding  realities.  If  this  answer 
is  appropriate  or  valid,  it  suggests  another  assumption,  viz. : 

(5.)  Nature  adapts  objects  and  powers  to  certain  ends.  In 
other  words,  physical  forces  are  regulated  and  controlled  by 
design.  The  application  already  made  shows  that  this  principle 
is  assumed.  This  will  be  still  more  clearly  manifest  from  the 
examples  previously  cited.  When  Copernicus  proposed  to  himself 
to  try  whether,  on  the  supposition  of  the  earth's  motion,  it  was 
possible  to  find  a  better  explanation  of  the  revolutions  of  the  celes- 
tial orbs  than  those  currently  received  from  the  ancients,  we  ask 
what  he  would  conceive  to  be  a  better  explanation,  and  find  an 
answer  to  our  own  question,  in  the  reasons  which  led  him  to 
prefer  his  own.  These  reasons  were,  that  this  theory  supposed 
greater  simplicity  and  symmetry  in  the  mechanism  of  the 
heavens,  than  the  older  theory  furnished.  But  why  is  a  neater 
and  more  symmetrical  theory  to  be  preferred  ?  Because  it  is 
better  adapted  to  satisfy  the  mind  of  man, — because  this  mind 
thus  reflects:  Were  I  to  provide  for  the  motions  and  appearances 
of  the  heavenly  bodies,  with  given  materials,  viz.,  force,  motion, 
etc.,  I  should  hold  and  move  these  bodies  by  the  simplest  possi- 
ble arrangement  of  motions,  and  the  most  economical  disposi- 
tion of  forces. 

Newton,  reflecting  on  the  force  of  gravity,  inquires  within 
himself,  "  Why  may  not  the  force  which  extends  beyond  the  tops 
of  the  highest  mountains  also  extend  as  far  as  the  moon,  and 
why  may  she  not  be  retained  in  her  orbit  thereby  ?"  His  own 
question  implied  the  answer :  "  If  this  single  force,  known  to 
exist,  would  explain  the  movements  of  the  solar  system,  it  is 
more  rational  to  believe  that  this  force  actually  exists  than  to 
adopt  any  other  explanation."  This  involves  the  assumption  of 
a  wise  adaptation  to  the  designed  effects  of  the  force  or  forces 
conceived  to  be  at  command.  It  is  by  a  reference  to  the  same 
assumption  that  we  explain  the  general  laws  of  philosophizing 
which  Newton  has  laid  down.  The  rule  that  real  and  sufficient 
causes  of  phenomena  are  to  be  taken  to  explain  phenomena, 
whether  it  is  or  is  not  interpreted  as  coming  under  the  more 
general  law  of  parsimony,  is  only  an  enunciation  of  the  truth  that 
if  an  element,  or  force,  already  known  to  exist,  can  be  employed 
to  evolve,  produce,  or  accomplish  an  effect,  no  new  force  will  be 


408  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  238. 

provided  or  is  to  be  supposed.  If  we  ask  upon  what  this  as- 
sumption rests,  we  reply,  that  any  other  arrangement  would  be 
bad  economy* — an  unwise  adaptation  of  means  to  ends. 

Underlying  all  inductive  inquiry,  we  find  the  assumption  of  a 
twofold  adaptation  in  nature ;  first,  of  the  several  parts  or  forces 
to  one  another,  and  second,  of  the  indications  of  nature  to  the 
mind  that  interprets  them.  But  in  assuming  that  nature  thus 
adapts  her  forces  to  ends  and  also  that  the  human  mind  is  com- 
petent to  discern  these  ends  and  to  interpret  the  skill  and 
success  of  nature  in  accomplishing  them,  we  imply — 

(6.)  That  the  human  intellect  in  induction,  judges  the  con- 
stitution and  operations  of  nature  by  referring  to  what  it  would 
itself  consider  to  be  rational  and  wise.  In  other  words,  induc- 
tion assumes  that  the  rational  methods  of  the  divine  and  human 
intellect  are  similar,  and  that  the  human  intellect  is  therefore 
capable  of  judging  of  the  principles  and  aims  by  which  the  uni- 
verse was  constructed  and  its  laws  can  be  known.  More  briefly 
expressed,  Induction  is  only  possible  on  the  assumption  that  the 
intellect  of  man  is  a  reflex  of  the  Divine  Intellect;  or  that  man  is 
made  in  the  image  of  God. 

§  238.  The  so-called  rules  or  methods  of  induction 
of  induction.68  are  three :  The  method  of  agreement,  the  method  of 
difference,  and  the  method  of  concomitant  variations. 
They  are  briefly  stated  as  follows :  (1.)  If  in  all  cases  of  an 
effect  or  phenomenon,  one  condition  is  uniformly  present,  that  is 
the  cause  or  includes  the  cause  of  such  a  phenomenon  or  effect, 
(2.)  If,  in  every  instance  in  which  an  effect  does  occur,  one  single 
condition  is  present,  which  is  uniformly  absent  whenever  such 
effect  does  not  occur,  this  constantly  present  or  absent  condition 
is  presumed  to  be  its  cause.  (3.)  If,  whenever  an  effect  or  phe- 
nomenon is  marked  with  peculiar  energy,  any  condition  varies 
with  proportional  intensity,  this  varying  condition  is  the  cause 
of  such  an  effect. 

Properly  conceived,  these  are  rules  for  testing  or  proving  in- 
ductions, or  rules  for  experiment :  they  cast  no  light  upon  that 
which  is  most  essential  in  the  inductive  process.  An  experiment 
is  a  nice  analysis  or  observation,  made  for  an  express  design. 
Analysis,  i.  e.,  discriminating  attention,  is  the  condition  of  all 
observation  of  qualities  and  causes.  It  begins  with  sensible  per- 


§  239.  INDUCTIVE  REASONING  OR  INDUCTION.  409 

ception,  and  without  it,  generalization  and  classification  are  im- 
possible. The  analysis  used  in  induction  is  peculiar  only  in 
being  directed  to  those  properties  and  laws  which  are  less  ob- 
vious, and  often  guides  to  a  special  search  for  those  which  the 
senses  cannot  directly  detect,  but  which  the  mind  divines. 

The  rules  for  this  search  are  not  different  in  fact  from  those 
which  the  simpler  inductions  of  common  sense  and  of  common 
life  require  and  employ.  It  is  only  because  the  relations  upon 
which  they  are  employed  are  less  obvious,  and  the  discriminations 
are  more  difficult,  that  these  rules  need  to  be  distinctly  con- 
sidered and  formally  applied,  and  that  the  formal  recognition  of 
them  by  Bacon  and  Newton  contributed  so  largely  to  the  advance 
of  modern  science. 

§  239.  Their  design  is  to  test  i  theory,  hypothesis,  or  ™e  C0na 
suggestion  which  the  miud  has  already  formed.  The 
experimenter  upon  nature  must  come  to  her  with  his 
question  formed  and  the  answer  anticipated,  before  he  applies  the 
methods  of  agreement  and  difference.  Lord  Bacon  says  abund- 
antly that  it  is  the  prudens  qucestio,  or  the  wisely-suggested 
question,  which  directs  the  experiment  to  an  anticipated  result, 
and  which  very  often  confidently  predicts  the  result  before  it  is 
actually  established  or  proved. 

If  now,  the  question  suggests  and  guides  the  experiment,  and 
if  the  anticipation  predicts  the  fulfillment,  we  ask,  What  suggests 
the  question  f  What  are  the  grounds  on  which,  or  the  methods 
by  which  the  mind  forms  its  hypothesis  f  When  for  example, 
Newton  anticipated  in  thought  the  solution  of  the  motions  of  the 
solar  system  by  gravity,  or  Davy  believed  that  he  could  bring 
out  from  the  brown  and  earthy  potash  the  brilliant  potassium, 
what  were  the  grounds  upon  which,  and  the  rules  after  which, 
their  minds  proceeded  ?  The  question  may  be  more  generally 
stated :  What  are  the  conditions  of  successful  invention  and  dis- 
covery f 

To  this  question  many  would  reply,  '  No  answer  can  be  given. 
The  power  to  read  the  secrets  of  nature  is  a  gift  of  nature.  It 
can  be  improved  by  exercise ;  it  can  be  formed  and  developed 
into  tact  and  skill;  but  what  are  the  methods  by  which  exercise 
can  form  or  mature  it,  is  raite  beyond  the  reach  or  power  of 
analysis  to  trace  out  or  describe.'  There  is  some  truth  in  this 
18 


410  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §239. 

view,  though  not  to  the  full  extent  of  this  representation. 
Analysis  can  at  least  separate  and  describe  the  essential  elements 
of  the  process,  and  can  so  far  describe  the  conditions  of  successful 
achievement. 

(1.)  The  first  condition  is,  that  the  attention  be  directed  to  that 
class  of  objects  and  powers  already  known,  which  are  to  indicate 
and  suggest  the  unknown.  The  discoveries  of  science  are  founded 
iipon  powers  and  relations  which  are  overlooked  by  the  great 
majority  even  of  cultivated  men.  The  sagacity  which  we  seek 
to  explain,  is  always  exercised  in  respect  to  that  subject-matter 
to  which  the  discoverer  has  given  special  attention,  and  with  the 
peculiarities  of  which  he  has  become  specially  familiar.  The 
chemical  discoverer  is  a  chemist.  The  discoverer  in  physics  is 
a  student  of  physics.  As  we  have  already  observed,  Franklin 
had  become  familiarly  acquainted  with  electricity  and  lightning, 
by  long-continued  attention  to  the  phenomena  of  both,  before  he 
thought  of  their  identity.  It  was  not  till  Newton  had  meditated 
long  and  frequently  on  the  forces  of  the  universe,  that  he  was  in 
a  condition  in  which  it  was  possible  for  him  to  anticipate  the 
theory  of  universal  gravitation.  Davy  must,  of  necessity,  have 
been  familiar  with  all  the  chemical  facts  already  ascertained,  in 
order  to  conjecture  the  unknown  base  of  potash.  It  is  plain,  that 
if  the  philosopher  is  to  interpret  indications,  he  must  first  observe 
and  attend  to  them. 

(2.)  It  is  implied  in  attention  to  objects  that  their  relations 
should  be  carefully  regarded.  For  the  purposes  of  knowledge, 
and  especially  of  science,  relations  are  all-important.  The  rela- 
tions most  important  to  science  are  those  of  likeness  or  unlike- 
ness  leading  to  classification,  the  relations  of  number  and  magni- 
tude which  .  are  the  conditions  of  mensuration,  the  relations  of 
causation  and  design  which  are  essential  to  reasoning. 

In  respect  to  the  power  of  apprehending  relations  with  facility 
and  success,  men  differ  greatly.  In  simple  judgments  of  com- 
parison, one  man  discerns  similar  and  dissimilar  qualities  when 
another  can  discern  neither  likeness  nor  difference.  Likenesses 
and  unlikenesses  of  form  are  likewise  detected  by  the  quick  eye 
of  one  man,  which  can  scarcely  be  made  apparent  to  the  slower 
and  less  acute  observation  of  another.  To  whatever  causes  these 
differences  of  power  may  be  ascribed,  whether  to  a  finer  sensuous 


§  239.  INDUCTIVE  REASONING  OR  INDUCTION.  411 

organization,  or  a  more  refined  and  discerning  spiritual  nature, 
the  fact  cannot  be  doubted  that  they  exist.  They  are,  in  part  to 
be  ascribed  to  training  and  opportunities,  in  part  to  the  interest 
or  necessity  which  enforces  the  application  and  the  energetic 
action  of  the  powers,  and,  in  part,  to  original  aptitudes  and 
capacities. 

(3.)  The  next  condition  of  success  is  an  acquired  familiarity 
with  the  special  modes  of  indicating  the  unknown  which  are 
followed  in  any  special  sphere  of  observation  or  scientific  inquiry. 
The  florist  marks  indications  in  flowers  which  are  unmeaning  to 
other  persons,  and  learns  to  connect  them  with  what  they  indi- 
cate. The  cultivator  of  fruits  gains  the  same  sagacity  with 
fruits.  The  sportsman  alone  learns  by  experience  to  understand 
the  significance  of  certain  actions  of  his  game.  The  keen  and 
discerning  eye  in  every  department  is  trained  by  what  it  is  ac- 
customed to,  and  gains  some  definite  impressions  in  respect  to  the 
methods  of  nature  in  accomplishing  her  objects,  and  in  indicating 
her  powers  and  laws.  The  devotee  of  any  special  science  soon 
gains  a  familiarity  with  the  movements  of  nature  within  his  own 
sphere.  He  enters,  so  to  speak,  into  her  spirit. 

The  literal  import  of  this  language  is  as  follows :  The  physicist 
and  chemist,  the  botanist  and  geologist,  learn  by  degrees  that 
in  their  several  spheres  certain  properties  are  far  more  pre- 
valent than  others ;  that  they  are  very  often  present  and  ma- 
nifest; that  certain  combinations  of  elements  and  agencies  are, 
so  to  speak,  favorites  with  nature.  Certain  powers  are  very 
limited  in  their  application,  and  of  course  are  manifest  in  a  smaller 
number  of  phenomena.  Others  show  themselves  in  a  great 
variety  of  existences,  and  explain  a  great  number  of  phenomena. 
Just  as  far  as  discovery  or  experience  proceed,  just  so  far  do  they 
mark  off  certain  powers  and  laws  as  more,  and  others  as  less 
extensive.  This  is  the  simple  result  of  experience  often  repeated 
in  respect  to  a  sufficient  variety  of  cases ;  this  experience  matures 
into  familiarity  with  what  may  be  called  the  preferences,  or 
favorite  methods,  according  to  which  nature  conducts  her  pro- 
cesses and  manifests  her  powers. 

(4.)  The  next  step  towards  discovery  is  the  me  of  the  construct- 
ive imagination.  All  the  steps  previously  considered  are  acts  of 
experience.  The  act  now  considered  is  an  act  of  mental  con- 


412  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  239. 

struction  or  combination.  It  relates  to  facts  as  supposed,  or 
conceived  to  be  possible  or  probable  by  the  mind.  The  objects, 
relations,  and  methods  of  nature  being  all  mastered  by  quick  and 
attentive  observation,  must  be  marshalled  by  the  memory  and 
placed  at  the  service  of  the  imagination  to  be  re-arranged  and 
re-combined. 

Let  a  complex  substance  be  presented  for  that  analysis  in 
thought  which  precedes  the  test  of  experiment :  or  let  some  un- 
explained phenomenon  be  proposed  to  be  accounted  for.  The 
first  effort  is  to  present  to  the  imagination  every  known  element 
or  agent,  and  to  ask  which  is  more  likely  to  be  the  one  which  we 
recfuire.  Or  if  none  that  are  known  will  meet  the  exigency, 
what  unknown  element  or  agent — and  acting  by  what  laws — may 
be  supposed  to  solve  the  problem  ? 

To  be  able  to  answer  these  questions  the  memory  must  be 
quick  to  suggest  all  the  powers  and  agents  that  are  known,  in  all 
their  known  relations.  The  presence  or  absence  of  a  single 
essential  fact  may  determine  the  question  whether  a  discovery 
shall  or  shall  not  be  made. 

It  is  not  enough,  however,  that  the  memory  suggests  all  that 
she  has  gathered,  unless  the  imagination  reconstructs  and  recom- 
bines  in  relations  as  yet  untried  and  unknown.  The  imagination 
takes  all  the  materials  at  its  command,  all  the  powers  and  agents 
which  are  known  to  exist,  with  their  laws  and  relations,  and  con- 
nects them  in  new  constructions.  It  makes  these  combinations 
not  to  amuse  or  illustrate,  not  to  convince,  instruct,  or  to  per- 
suade, but  simply  to  conjecture  what  is  best  adapted  to  meet  the 
exigency. 

What  is  called  accident,  too,  very  often  combines  with 
memory  and  the  imagination,  and,  at  times,  determines  a 
great  discovery  in  science,  or  a  grand  invention  in  the  arts. 
The  Marquis  of  Worcester  happens  to  see  the  rising  and  falling 
of  the  cover  of  a  tea-kettle,  and  forthwith  he  commences  a  course 
of  speculation  in  respect  to  the  laws  of  the  agent  which  furnished 
this  force ;  and  thus  sets  in  motion  the  course  of  discovery  which 
has  given  to  science  and  art  steam  power  with  all  its  applications. 

But  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  men  had  observed  the 
same  phenomenon  which  attracted  the  attention  and  excited  the 
inquiries  of  the  Marquis  of  Worcester.  His  previous  knowledge 


§  240.  INDUCTIVE  REASONING  OE  INDUCTION.  413 

of  science  and  his  familiar  acquaintance  with  scientific  relations 
alone  enabled  him  to  turn  his  knowledge  to  the  use  of  discovery. 
The  promptness  and  vigor  with  which  the  associative  faculty 
avails  itself  of  such  an  incident  decide  the  question  whether  it 
shall  be  received  as  a  productive  seed  <or  whether  it  shall  fall 
upon  the  barren  rock. 

The  curiosity  of  the  investigator  is  a  most  important  condition 
of  failure  or  success,  for  it  determines  whether  or  not  the  intel- 
lect shall  be  effectively  applied  to  the  objects  and  relations  which 
alone  prepare  the  way  for  new  knowledge.  Perseverance  and 
tenacity  hold  the  attention  and  the  memory  to  the  question 
which  may  have  been  started ;  they  task  the  memory  to  give  up 
all  its  past  acquisitions,  and  stimulate  the  imagination  to  perseve- 
rance in  its  efforts  to  reconstruct  them. 

(5.)  To  success  in  induction,  the  power  of  sure  and  ready  de- 
duction is  also  essential.  The  real  nature  and  reach  of  any 
theory  which  is  suggested  by  the  memory  or  constructed  by  the 
imagination,  cannot  be  understood  until  the  most  important  con- 
sequences and  applications  are  derived  from  it  in  the  form 
of  conclusions.  The  law  of  gravitation  was  no  sooner  sug- 
gested to  the  imagination  of  Newton,  in  the  question,  "why 
not"  and  sanctioned  by  the  approving  answer,  "  it  is  very 
probably  true ;"  than  the  additional  thought, "  if  so,  what  folloivs" 
led  him  to  an  act  of  deduction. 

The  power  of  wide-reaching,  sure  and  rapid  deduction,  is  an 
important  element  in  the  qualifications  of  the  successful  dis- 
coverer. A  severe  training  in  the  discipline  of  the  Syllogistic 
Logic,  and  the  linked  demonstrations  of  Geometry,  as  also  in  the 
subtle  calculations  of  Numbers,  is  an  admirable  if  not  an  essen- 
tial preparation  for  success  in  discovery. 

(6.)  The  conditions  previously  described  being  all  fulfilled, 
the  reason  then  judges  which  of  all  the  various  possible  supposi- 
tions which  the  imagination  suggests,  gives  the  most  satisfactory 
solution  and  is  most  probably  true. 

§  240.  But  by  what  standard  ?  What  are  the  grounds  ™®ej;hoiche  b®' 
and  tests  of  probability  ?     The  history  of  Induction  these8- 
shows   that    these   differ    in    different    cases.      Sometimes    the 
known  existence  of  some  agent  or  law,  or  its  very  extensive  pre- 
valence in  the  economy  of  nature,  is  the  deciding  circumstance  in 


414  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §240. 

its  favor.  We  always  assume  that  nature  works  the  most  diverse 
effects  by  the  fewest  possible  elements  or  forces.  Sometimes  it  is 
what  is  loosely  termed  analogy. 

But  analogy  and  the  want  of  it  pertain  to  very  different  qualities* 
and  relations ;  sometimes  to  those  which  affect  the  senses  imme- 
diately, as  the  eye  and  the  touch,  sometimes  to  those  which  are 
more  remote  from  direct  apprehension,  as  to  mechanical  or 
chemical  effects  or  mathematical  relations.  Which  analogies 
shall  be  decisive  in  such  cases  is  determined  by  the  importance 
attached  to  each  in  the  general  or  the  special  economy  of  nature, 
or  by  what  is  called  the  congruity  with  her  methods  in  similar 
departments. 

In  the  application  of  these  and  of  similar  criteria  the  intellect 
appeals,  so  to  speak,  to  itself.  The  interpreter  of  nature  continu- 
ally asks  himself  thus  :  Given,  certain  elements,  powers,  and 
laws,  how  should  I  indicate  them  ?  or  how  should  I  apply  them  ? 
Or,  in  the  reverse  order :  Given,  certain  ends,  effects,  and  phe- 
nomena, which  of  the  known  forces  at  command  would  a  rational 
being  employ  for  this  or  that  object,  if  he  aimed  at  an  orderly, 
an  intelligible,  or  a  beautiful  universe?  Or,  if  no  one  of  the 
forces  known  is  adequate  to  explain  the  effects  of  phenomena, 
what  unknown  force  or  element  is  required  to  account  for  them, 
so  as  best  to  fulfil  their  objects,  and  what  must  be  the  properties 
and  what  the  laws  of  such  an  agent  ? 

The  language  so  often  used,  that  man  is  the  interpreter  of 
nature,  that  nature  has  her  methods,  her  economies,  and  her  fa- 
vorite ways,  implies  that  in  all  these  judgments,  there  is  a  belief 
in  the  constructive  or  arranging  processes  of  another  mind. 

When  Kepler  exclaims,  "  0  God!  I  think  thy  thoughts  after 
thee!" — when  Agassiz  catches  and  repeats  the  same  sentiment,  in 
asserting  that  all  just  and  thorough  classification  is  but  an  inter- 
pretation of  the  thoughts  of  the  Creator,  they  simply  express  in 
other  language  the  assumption  on  which  every  sagacious  antici- 
pation or  felicitous  theory  is  founded,  viz.,  that  the  rational 
methods  of  the  Divine  and  human  intellect  must  be  the  same.  This 
of  course,  includes  the  assumption,  without  which  the  principles, 
maxims,  and  methods  of  the  inductive  philosophy  have  no 
meaning  and  no  foundation,  viz.,  that  the  universe  of  mattei 
and  mind  has  its  ground  and  explanation  in  an  intelligent  origi* 


§  241.  INDUCTIVE  REASONING  OH  INDUCTION.  415 

nator.   In  other  words,  Induction  rests  upon  ike  assumption, — as  it 
demands  for  its  ground, — that  a  personal  or  a  thinking  Deity  exists. 

It  follows  that  the  most  successful  theorist  and  the  most  saga- 
cious questioner  of  nature  is  the  man  who  takes  the  wisest  views 
of  her  indications,  by  the  appropriate  signs  of  her  economy  in  the 
use  of  given  forces,  and  of  her  adaptation  to  the  ends  of  har- 
mony, beauty,  and  perhaps  of  beneficence ;  and  who  has  been 
most  accustomed  to  reflect  upon  the  actual  methods  by  which 
these  various  workings  of  nature  are  accomplished  in  varying 
cases,  as  in  mechanical  effects,  chemical  combinations,  vital 
forces,  and  spiritual  endowments.  He  is  the  wisest  interpreter 
of  nature,  who  through  nature  has  entered  most  intimately  into 
the  thoughts  of  God. 

§241.  (7.)  Last  of  all  comes  the  experiment  to 
test  the  theory,  however  sagaciously  conjectured — to 
answer  the  question,  however  ingeniously  proposed.  Though 
we  must  assume  that  the  methods  of  the  divine  and  the 
human  intellect  are  the  same,  yet  we  must  concede  that 
the  elements  and  powers,  the  laws  and  methods  of  the  universe, 
i.  e.,  the  thoughts  of  the  Creator,  can,  as  yet,  be  conjectured  by 
the  created  intellect  only  to  a  limited  extent. 

Even  of  the  facts  which  have  been  observed  and  known  we 
are  not  always  sure  that  we  have  considered  all  in  all  their  rela- 
tions, when  our  theory  was  constructed.  We  therefore  bring 
the  judgments  founded  upon  these  limited  data  to  the  revisal  of 
the  Infinite  Mind.  We  question  nature  whether  our  thoughts 
correspond  with  her  own.  We  correct  the  answers  which  we 
had  devised  by  the  decided  responses  which  our  experiments 
elicit. 

While,  then,  on  the  one  hand,  man,  in  constructing  his  wise 
questionings  and  in  framing  his  sagacious  theories,  may  claim  a 
likeness  to  God ;  he  concedes  his  human  limitations  in  submitting 
his  theories  to  the  test  of  experiment.  Rightly  conceived,  every 
scientific  experiment  is  an  act  of  reverent  worship. 


416  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  24!i 

CHAPTER  IX. 

SCIENTIFIC   ARRANGEMENT.  —  THE  SYSTEM. 

§  242.  We  have  akeady  considered  the  several  pro- 
nmgemenr.  BP"  cesses  of  objective  or  concrete  thinking,  and  the  pro- 


ducts  which  they  evolve.  The  processes  are  analysis; 
generalization  ;  classification  ;  judgment,  in  the  two 
forms  of  definition  and  division  ;  and  reasoning,  by  deduction  and 
induction  —  giving  us  as  their  products,  the  concept;  the  class; 
the  proposition  ;  the  argument  ;  and  the  principle  or  law.  The 
combination  of  these  several  processes  and  their  results  in  a  com- 
plex result  or  product,  is  scientific  arrangement,  and  the  product 
is  the  system. 

Scientific  arrangement  or  method  may  be  defined  in  general, 
as  the  gathering  of  individual  objects  into  a  synthetic  whole,  by 
any  one  of  the  analyses  and  generalizations  of  thought.  When 
any  number  of  such  objects  are  united  into  such  a  whole,  that 
whole  may,  in  a  certain  sense,  be  called  a  system.  This  is  not, 
however,  the  usual  signification  of  the  term.  We  employ  it  iu 
this  sense  simply  to  call  attention  to  the  truth,  that  the  process 
of  classification  is  the  beginning  of  systemization.  This  is  the 
first  condition  or  step  of  the  synthetic  process  which  terminates 
in  the  system  proper. 

Inasmuch  as  every  concept  has  the  two  relations  of  extent  or 
content  either  dormant  or  developed,  that  arrangement  of  indivi- 
dual objects  in  these  two  directions  which  follows  from  the  appli- 
cation to  them  of  both  the  content  and  the  extent  of  a  notion  is 
more  properly  a  system.  When  several  notions  of  a  more  or  less 
comprehensive  content,  or  a  more  or  less  widely  applicable  extent, 
are  used  to  define  and  divide  the  individual  objects  to  which  they 
apply,  these  objects  are  brought  into  a  system  ;  or  the  mind  is 
said  to  take  a  systematic  view  of  their  several  properties,  and  to 
class  them  as  mutually  related  to  one  another.  Their  properties 
are  seen  to  be  more  or  less  extensively  the  same  ;  the  classes  in 
which  they  are  grouped  or  gathered  are  said  to  be  higher  01 


§  243.  SCIENTIFIC  ARRANGEMENT. — THE  SYSTEM.  417 

lower,  and  the  several  classes  are  arranged  into  a  hierarchy  or  a 
subordinated  whole. 

Inasmuch,  also,  as  every  concept  results  from,  represents,  and 
may  be  expanded  into,  its  propositions ;  these  twofold  propositions 
of  content  and  extent  express,  when  properly  arranged,  the  sys- 
tematic arrangement  or  method  of  the  objects  to  which  such 
propositions  can  be  applied. 

Every  concept,  as  well  as  every  proposition  that  respectively 
defines  and  divides,  and  thus  arranges  and  subordinates,  the 
objects  to  which  each  belongs,  indicates  or  suggests  some  property 
or  power  or  law  of  the  beings  to  which  it  is  applied.  Most 
name]  of  things  indicate  that  they  belong  to  some  permanent 
class,  and  are  possessed  of  properties  that  are  fixed  in  the  designs, 
and  are  perpetuated  by  the  laws  of  nature.  The  most  important 
propositions  of  definition  and  division  simply  expand  and  apply 
these  permanent  properties  and  laws. 

§  243.  The  more  important  of  these  properties  and  g  gtem  in  itg 
laws  are  those  which  are  discovered  by  induction,  ap-  hisher  signifi- 
plied  in  deduction,  and  verified  by  experiment, 
after  the  methods  which  have  been  explained.  When  so 
discovered,  and  applied,  and  established,  they  are  used  to  ex- 
plain or  account  for  the  less  obvious  events  and  phenomena  in 
the  universe  of  matter  and  of  spirit.  The  properties,  princi- 
ples, and  laws  which  are  thus  inferred  in  induction,  applied  by 
deduction,  and  verified  by  tests  of  fact, — as  they  are  respectively 
established, — serve  also  to  define  and  divide  the  beings  and  events 
which  they  concern ;  but  by  notions  that  are  constituted  of  the  more 
refined  elements,  and  that  divide  beings  into  the  more  comprehen- 
sive and  significant  classes.  Hence  result  scientific  systems,  i.  e., 
systems  founded  on  principles  more  profound  and  wide-reaching 
than  those  which  direct  the  classifications  of  common  life. 

It  follows  that  scientific  arrangement  and  systemization, — the 
concepts  and  terms, — are  applied  with  pre-eminent  propriety  to 
Che  methodical  arrangement  which  is  founded  and  effected  by 
these  more  recondite  properties  and  more  extensive  laws.  Such 
properties  and  laws  are  said  pre-eminently  to  explain  the  opera- 
tions of  nature,  and  to  enable  man  to  predict  phenomena,  as  well 
as  to  control  events  and  results  by  art  or  skill.  Such  arrange- 
ment gives  the  system,  in  the  pre-eminent  sense,  when  many  of 

18* 


418  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §243. 

these  more  subtle  and  significant  laws  and  properties  are  arranged 
in  order  as  higher  and  lower,  i.  e.,  as  more  and  less  comprehen- 
sive in  import  and  extensive  in  application. 

It  is  important  to  observe  that  the  terms  scientific  method 
and  system  may  be  applied  to  a  narrower  or  wider  range  of 
beings  or  events,  and  may  be  founded  on  generalizations  which 
are  narrower  and  wider,  or  on  inductions  which  are  more  or  less 
profound.  They  may  include  a  single  kingdom  of  organic  or 
inorganic  existences,  or  may  embrace  all  material  things.  They 
may  define  and  arrange  these  according  to  the  more  obvious  pro- 
perties and  laws  which  are  open  to  common  observation,  or  may 
employ  those  properties  which  appear  to  hasty  observation  to  be 
very  remote,  and  which  are  reached  only  by  the  most  sagacious 
conjectures,  and  the  most  skilful  experiments.  They  may  in- 
clude the  domain  of  spirit  only,  or  extend  to  the  kingdoms  of 
both  matter  and  spirit,  and  arrange  the  two  domains  by  the  pro- 
perties and  laws  which  can  be  established  as  common  to  the  two. 

Systematic  arrangement  and  scientific  method  are  also  freely 
applied  to  abstracta,  or  those  artificial  products  which  are  the 
creations  of  the  human  intellect ;  to  those  concepts  which  law, 
ethics,  theology,  politics,  and  political  economy  familiarly  employ, 
as  well  as  to  those  abstract  forms  and  rules  which  grammar,  logic, 
and  the  mathematics  prescribe.  But  all  concepts  are  derived 
from  propositions,  as  their  originators  and  vouchers.  A  system 
of  definitions,  properly  subordinated  and  derived,  is  therefore  essen- 
tial to  every  scientific  system  of  concepts,  terms,  rules,  and  prin- 
ciples, and  should  always  be  justified  by  the  concrete  examples 
and  existing  beings  from  which  the  concepts  are  derived,  and  by 
which  the  principles  are  tested. 


§  244.         THE  INTUITIONS  DEFINED  AND  ENUMERATED.  419 

PAET  FOURTH: 

INTUITION. — THE    CATEGORIES. — FIRST   PRINCIPLES. 

CHAPTER  L 

THE   INTUITIONS   DEFINED   AND    ENUMERATED. 

§  244.  Thus  far  we  have  inquired  what  are  the  ^^^ 
processes  and  products  of  knowledge,  when  the  know-  JHJ^  out 
ing  power  is  employed  in  the  form  of  direct  activity. 

We  are  now  to  turn  the  power  in  upon  itself;  to  inquire 
what  are  the  relations  which  it  necessarily  assumes  in  all  those 
operations.  In  doing  this  we  enter  upon  the  last  and  highest 
stage  of  our  inquiries — which  is  properly  called  the  critical 
or  the  speculative.  It  is  critical  because  it  analyzes  these  opera- 
tions for  the  purpose  of  testing  their  trustworthiness.  It  is 
speculative  because  it  aims  to  find  the  ultimate  elements  and 
foundations  of  all  science  and  all  knowledge. 

This  critical  analysis  of  the  power  of  knowledge  is  the  last 
and  highest  form  of  the  mind's  activity,  because  it  supposes  the 
complete  development  and  discipline  of  all  the  other  powers. 
The  mind  must  be  trained  to  analyze  everything  besides,  before 
it  can  successfully  analyze -the  processes  and  products  of  its  own 
power  to  know.  The  mind  must  reach  a  high  degree  of  psycho- 
logical development,  before  it  is  prepared  to  comprehend  its  pro- 
cesses and  products  under  their  most  comprehensive  logical 
relations.  The  power  of  thought  must  be  disciplined  by  exercise 
upon  many  objects  and  in  manifold  methods  before  it  can  be 
competent  to  analyze  the  most  general  relations  that  are  assumed 
in  the  several  operations  of  knowledge  and  are  the  rational 
foundations  of  its  confidence  in  whatever  it  knows.  It  must  have 
studied  these  operations  of  the  intellect  familiarly,  before  it  can 
ask  itself  what  relations  each  of  them  imply.  As  the  thought- 
power  is  at  once  the  analyzing  and  generalizing  power,  so  the 
study  of  these  relations  is  regarded  as  intimately  related  to  it. 


420  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  244 

This  critical  examination  of  the  power  to  know,  involves  a 
philosophical  scrutiny  of  the  grounds  and  trustworthiness  of  all 
knowledge  and  belief.  It  convinces  us  that  the  relations  01 
principles  which  we  receive  and  trust  as  axioms  in  one  kind  of 
knowledge,  are  to  be  trusted  in  another.  It  shows  us,  moreover, 
that  we  are  bound  to  believe  and  follow  them  wherever  they  lead 
us,  because  we  cannot  know  any  truth  without  them.  It  sets  aside 
objections  that  are  derived  from  the  denial  of  these  relations  by 
showing  that  they  are  not  only  fundamental,  but  are  always 
applicable  It  disarms  skepticism  of  every  kind,  whether  it  be 
philosophical,  ethical,  or  theological,  by  showing  that  the  relations 
which  the  human  mind  must  apply  in  its  lower  knowledge,  it 
cannot  refuse  to  trust  in  their  higher  applications. 

These  inquiries  conduct  us  from  the  field  of  psychology  towards 
and  into  the  fields  of  both  logic  and  metaphysics.  It  is  not 
practically  easy  to  draw  the  lines  which  determine  the  boundaries 
of  each.  The  critical  analysis  comes  first  in  time,  and  is  appro- 
priate to  psychology:  logic  and  metaphysics  avail  themselves 
of  the  results  which  this  psychological  analysis  gives. 

Strictly  speaking,  in  psychology  we  show  by  analysis  that  we 
constantly  require  and  employ  these  cognitions,  while  in  logic 
and  metaphysics  we  inquire  what  they  are,  and  what  are  their  relations 
to  the  other  objects  of  knowledge.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  it  is 
impossible  to  separate  the  analysis  of  a  process  from  an  analysis 
of  its  product,  the  psychological  will  often  seem  to  encroach  upon 
the  logical  and  metaphysical  sphere. 

These  ultimate  facts  and  relations  are  not  gained  by  any  of  the 
processes  of  the  intellect  which  we  have  thus  far  considered.  They 
are  not  perceived  by  sense-perception,  nor  felt  by  consciousness; 
they  are  neither  reproduced  in  memory,  nor  represented  or 
created  by  the  phantasy ;  they  are  not  generalized  from  simple 
experience  of  material  or  spiritual  objects  ;  they  are  neither 
proved  by  deduction,  nor  inferred  by  induction.  Their  truth 
and  validity  are  not  apprehended  by,  but  they  are  involved 
in  these  processes.  They  are  developed  and  brought  to  view  in 
connection  with  these  processes,  and  are  assumed  in  them  all. 
They  have  been  They  have  sometimes  been  referred  to  a  special 
Kparmto  t0  a  and  separate  faculty.  This  so-called  faculty  has  been 
faculty.  designated  by  various  appellations,  ap  the  reason,  com- 


§  245,         THE  INTUITIONS  DEFINED  AND  ENUMERATED.  421 

mon  sense,  judgment,  intuition,  faith,  the  intelligence,  the  regulative 
faculty,  the  noetic  faculty,  6  Nouq  as  contrasted  with  y  Atdvota, 
die  Vernunft  as  contrasted  with  der  Verstand.  But  it  has  been 
generally  conceded  that  the  word  faculty  is  not  employed  in  its 
usual  signification.  Thus  Hamilton  observes  (Met.  Lee.,  38), 
the  term  "  faculty  is  employed,  not  to  denote  the  proximate 
cause  of  any  definite  energy,  but  the  power  the  mind  has  of 
being  the  native  source  of  certain  necessary  or  a  priori  cogni- 
tions." 

The  'cognitions  or  beliefs  themselves  "  have  ob- 
tained various  appellations."  They  have  been  de- 
nominated :  Intuitions,  categories  of  thought,  first  prin- 
ciples,  self-evident  or  intuitive  truths,  primitive  notions, 
innate  cognitions,  metaphysical  or  transcendental  truths,  ultimate 
or  elemental  laws  of  thought,  primary  or  fundamental  laws  of 
human  belief,  pure  or  transcendental  or  a  priori  cognitions.  They 
are  called  intuitions  because  they  are  discerned  by  reflex  analysis 
to  be  present  in  all  our  knowledge,  and  categories  of  thought 
because  as  generalized  conceptions  they  are  of  universal  applica- 
tion as  the  foundations  of  thought  and  science. 

It  will  be  observed  that  some  of  these  appellations  designate 
propositions,  which  affirm  the  reality  and  authority  of  these  re- 
lations, and  others  the  relations  themselves  in  the  form  of  con- 
cepts. The  distinction  is  purely  formal.  It  is  a  matter  of  terms 
and  not  of  thoughts,  of  language  only,  but  not  of  things.  It  is 
true  in  this  as  in  all  other  cases,  that  it  is  from  or  through  a  pro- 
position, that  each  of  these  concepts  is  derived.  The  concepts 
of  cause  and  effect  and  of  causation,  those  of  means  and  adapta- 
tion as  well  as  those  appropriate  to  extension  and  duration,  are 
first  gained  through  propositions  expressing  beliefs. 

§  245.    It  is  often  convenient  to  generalize  these 
as  propositions.     In  such  cases  we  call  them  primitive  order  of  ltim«J 
judgments  or  first  truths.  In  naming  them  first  truths   Sportonco!™ 
or  primitive  judgments,  it  is  not  intended  that  these 
truths  or  judgments  are  acquired  first  in  the  order  of  time,  or 
that  the  mind's  assent  to  them  is  prior  to  its  other  acts  of  know- 
ledge.    That  they  cannot  be  acquired  or  assented  to  first  of  all, 
is  evident  from  the  unquestionable  fact  that,  by  very  many  they 
are  never  acquired  at  all.     The  majority  of  men  never  think  of 


422  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  246. 

them,  much  less  do  they  assent  to  them.  Even  the  majority  who 
attain  to  not  a  little  culture,  do  not  reach  a  clear  and  intelligent 
conviction  that  these  propositions  are  true. 

It  'was  forcibly  urged  by  Locke  that  such  propositions  as 
"  whatever  is,  is  "  and  "  the  same  thing  cannot  be  and  not  be  at  the 
same  time"  cannot  be  innate,  for  the  plain  reason  that  men  at 
their  birth,  and  in  all  the  early  period  of  their  existence  are  en- 
tirely incapable  of  understanding  the  meaning  of  the  concep- 
tions and  terms  of  which  these  propositions  are  composed ;  and  if 
they  cannot  understand  the  constituent  elements,  much  less  are 
they  capable  of  asserting  that  one  of  them  is  true  of  the  other. 
It  might  be  further  enforced  by  the  consideration,  that  the  mass 
of  men  are  incapable  of  that  analytic  abstraction  which  is  neces- 
sary to  detach  the  universal  from  the  individual  example  in 
which  it  is  realized.  Or,  if  we  concede  or  suppose  that  the 
causal  attribute  or  relation  could,  by  analysis,  be  distinguished 
from  the  individual  example  of  cause  or  effect,  an  additional  act 
of  generalization  would  be  necessary  to  qualify  the  mind  to 
assent  to  the  general  truth,  "  EVERY  event  must  have  a  cause." 

These  truths,  instead  of  being  the  first  to  be  con- 
faJtheyaSnS  sciously  possessed  and  assented  to,  are  the  last  which 
of1imehe°rder  are  reached,  and  by  only  a  few  of  the  race  are  ever 
reached  at  all.  Experience  proves  that  long  courses 
of  training  are  required,  to  bring  the  intellect  into  a  capacity  for 
analysis  and  generalization,  which  may  enable  it  to  understand 
and  assent  to  them.  The  mind  must  be  exercised  to  some  extent 
in  philosophical  studies  before  it  can  comprehend  their  import 
and  application. 

§  246.    These    truths    or   judgments    stand  first 

Son?  SoSfni  a  in  the  order  of  rational  or  logical  importance.   Hence 

they  are  called  first  principles :  principles  or  truths  a 

priori,  as  opposed  to  knowledges  a  posteriori.     As  concepts  they 

are  called  categories,  pure  cognitions,  etc. 

The  term  principle,  which  is  so  often  used  in  this  connection, 
is  variously  employed,  and  admits  of  many  senses.  It  may  be 
generally  defined  as  any  thing  with  which  the  mind  begins  in  an 
act  of  rational  or  logical  combination,  or  more  generally  still,  as 
the  constituent  of  any  synthetic  product.  The  word  principium, 
,  literally,  a  beginning  or  starting-point.  Inasmuch  as 


§  246.         THE  INTUITIONS  DEFINED  AND  ENUMEKATED.  423 

there  are  as  many  beginnings  as  there  are  processes  or  progresses 
to  different  ends  or  results,  so  the  word  principle  is  used  in  the 
following  special  meanings. 

1.  Any  constituent  element  of  an  existing  thing,  whether  it  is 
material  or  spiritual — whether  it  is  a  being,  act,  or  product,  is  a 
principle.    The  materials  which  we  bring  together,  or  think  belong 
together  so  as  to  constitute  any  existing  object,  are  sometimes 
called  principles.     In  a  similar  way,  the  simple  concepts  that 
make  up  any  complex  concept  or  general  notion  whatever,  are 
called  principles. 

2.  Any  causal  agent  in  matter  or  spirit,  is  called  a  principle, 
because  the  cause  is  looked  upon  as  originating  and  beginning 
the  effect.     Thus  we  say  of  a  machine,  it  has  the  principle  of 
motion  within  itself.     It  is  not  uncommon  to  apply  it  to  the  capa- 
cities of  the  soul,  viewed  as  causes  of  its  functions  or  activities 
Thus,  we  say,  there  is  a  principle  in  man's  nature  by  which  he  is 
able  to  distinguish  truth  from  falsehood,  or  right  from  wrong. 

3.  All  general  propositions  which   are  admitted  or  used  as 
premises  in  deduction,  are  also  principles.     They  are  so  called, 
because  the  mind  begins  with  one  of  them  in  the  process  of  its 
reasoning. 

4.  All  generalizations  from  induction,  as  well  as  all  collected 
observations  from  experience,  are  called  principles,  for  the  reason 
that  they  are  used  to  explain  and  account  for  the  occurrence  of 
particular  events  or  phenomena.     The  mind  begins  with  these  in 
all  its  rational  solutions.   Hence  the  powers  of  nature  and  the  laws 
of  nature,  as  well  as  observed  facts  when  generalized  and  supposed 
to  indicate  some  concealed  law,  are  freely  called  principles. 

5.  Those  general  truths  which  are  the  starting-points  of  the 
reasonings  or  communications  of  any  special  science  or  art,  are 
called,  with  eminent  propriety,  principles  ;  because,  in  imparting 
or  demonstrating  the  science,  the  teacher  begins  with  these  as 
facts,  or  reasons  from  them  as  premises.     Hence  the  fundamentjaf 
maxims  or  assumptions  of  mathematics,  of  logic,  of  law,  of 
ethics,  of  politics  and  political  economy,  are  called  the  principles 
of  each  of  these  sciences. 

6.  But  the  appellation  of  principles  is  applied  with  preemi- 
nent propriety  to  any  one  of  those  universal  concepts  and  relar 
tions  which  are  implied  in  any  of  the  different  kinds  of  knowledge, 


424  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §247. 

because  it  must  be  assumed  or  supposed  as  a  beginning  or  ele- 
ment to  make  that  knowledge  conceivable. 

7.  If  there  are  other  objects  of  knowledge  usually  called  in- 
finite and  absolute,  which  are  necessarily  implied  in  the  special 
and  limited  relations,  and  are  their  necessary  correlates,  these 
preeminently  deserve  to  be  called  principles,  as  they  are  in  ra- 
tional order  and  dependence  before,  and  are  the  grounds  and  ex- 
planation of,  all  other  objects  of  thought  and  knowledge.  Whether 
there  are  such,  must  be  decided  by  our  subsequent  inquiries,  and 
will  Ibe  discussed  in  the  appropriate  place. 

§  247.  Our  knowledge  of  these  truths  is  occasioned 

The  relation    ,  -.  .  „.    . 

of  intuition  to   by,   but  is  not    derived  irom    experience.      I  his   is 

experience.  .  ,     i     i_ 

most  happily  expressed  in  a  sentence  quoted  by 
Hamilton  from  Patricius ;  cognitio  omnis  a  mente  primam  originem, 
a  sensibus  exordium  habet  primum. 

Indeed,  the  most  sagacious  thinkers  coincide  in  this  opinion, 
that  our  higher  and  a  priori  knowledge,  while  independent  of 
experience  as  the  source  of  its  evidence  and  authority,  is  depen- 
dent upon  experience  as  the  occasion  of  its  development.  Titus 
Leibnitz,  in  criticising  Locke  for  asserting  that  all  our  knowledge 
is  derived  from  sensation  and  reflection,  says :  "  The  senses,  al- 
though necessary  for  all  our  actual  cognitions,  are  not,  however, 
competent  to  afford  us  all  that  our  cognitions  involve."  Reid 
also  observes,  in  defence  and  explanation  of  Locke's  real  mean- 
ing :  "  I  think  Mr.  Locke,  when  he  comes  to  speak  of  the  ideas 
of  relations  does  not  say  that  they  are  ideas  of  sensation  or  re- 
flection, but  only  that  they  terminate  in  and  are  concerned  about, 
ideas  of  sensation  and  reflection."  Essay  vi.  c.  i.  The  doctrine 
of  Kant  upon  this  subject  is  uniformly  as  follows :  "  We  must 
then  first  of  all  observe,  that  although  all  judgments  of  experi- 
ence are  empirical,  i.  e.,  have  their  ground  in  the  immediate  per- 
ceptions of  the  senses,  yet  conversely  it  is  not  true,  that  all 
empirical  judgments  are  for  this  reason  judgments  of  experience, 
but  in  addition  to  the  empirical  element,  and  in  general  in  addi- 
tion to  that  which  is  given  to  sense-intuition,  particular  concepts 
must  be  furnished,  whose  origin  is  a  priori  in  the  pure  under- 
standing, under  which  every  percept  must  be  subsumed  and  so 
changed  into  true  experiential  as  distinguished  from  empirical 
knowledge."  Proleg.  §  18. 


§  247.         THE  INTUITIONS  DEFINED  AND  ENUMERATED.  425 

Victor  Cousin  also  repeats  himself  to  the  same  effect  abun- 
dantly in  the  following  strain :  "  The  idea  of  body  is  given 
to  us  by  the  touch  and  the  sight,  that  is,  by  the  experience 
of  the  senses.  On  the  contrary,  the  idea  of  space  is  given  to  us, 
on  occasion  of  the  idea  of  body  by  the  understanding,  the  mind, 
the  reason  ;  in  fine,  by  a  faculty  other  than  sensation.  Hence 
the  formula  of  Kant :  '  the  pure  rational  idea  of  space  comes  so 
little  from  experience,  that  it  is  the  condition  of  all  experience.' " 
"  Now  the  idea  of  space,  we  have  just  seen,  is  clearly  the  logical 
condition  of  all  sensible  experience.  Is  it  also  the  chronological 
condition  of  experience  and  of  the  idea  of  body  ?  I  believe  no 
such  thing."  "  Take  away  all  sensation ;  take  away  the  sight 
and  the  touch,  and  you  have  no  longer  any  idea  of  body,  and 
consequently  none  of  space."  "  Rationally,  logically,  if  you  had 
not  the  idea  of  space  you  could  not  have  the  idea  of  body  ;  but 
the  converse  is  true  chronologically,  and  in  fact,  the  idea  of  space 
comes  up  along  with  the  idea  of  body."  Elements  of  Psychology, 
translated  by  C.  S.  Henry,  chap.  2.  Cours  de  VHlstoire  de  la 
Phil,  du  17e  siecle.  Lepon  17. 

The  several  stages  by  which  these  categories  are  developed  in 
experience  are  the  following : 

(1.)  The  first  act  or  stage  is  the  cognition  of  any  concrete 
object,  of  which  any  attribute  involving  an  intuition  might  be  af- 
firmed, or  exemplified.  The  object  may  be  material  or  spiritual, 
it  may  be  a  being  or  an  act,  as  these  are  commonly  distinguished. 
For  example,  it  may  be  a  fruit,  a  piece  of  marble ;  the  combus- 
tion of  wood,  the  explosion  of  gunpowder,  the  shooting  of  a  star, 
the  running  of  a  horse ;  a  remembered  occurrence,  a  sally  of 
imagination,  a  fixed  purpose,  or  the  ego  of  our  conscious  acts. 

It  is  conceivable  that  these  and  the  like  objects  may  be  cog- 
nized for  an  instant,  without  the  perception  of  any  relation. 

(2.)  The  next  step  or  stage  is  the  apprehension  of  these  objects 
as  related  in  one  or  more  given  ways.  The  fruit  is  known  as 
oval  in  form,  as  large  or  small  in  size.  The  color,  taste,  and 
feeling  of  the  fruit  are  thought  of  it  as  qualities  or  properties. 
The  combustion  and  explosion,  the  remembering,  the  imagining, 
are  known  as  acts  of  the  material  or  spiritual  agent  or  as  effects 
of  which  these  agents  are  the  causes,  or  as  the  ends  to  which 
other  acts  are  adapted,  and  for  which  they  are  designed. 


426  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §247. 

This  second  stage  is  reached  by  the  whole  race,  not  to  the 
same  extent  or  perfection  in  all,  but  so  far  that  all  may  be  said 
to  achieve  this  kind  of  knowledge. 

Material  objects  are  known  by  all  men  as  long  and  short,  round 
and  square.  Events  are  known  by  all  as  before  and  after.  One 
object  or  act  is  known  as  the  cause  or  the  end  of  another  object 
or  act.  The  words  which  express  and  indicate  the  more  familiar 
of  these  relations  are  accepted  in  the  language  of  all  men.  They 
are  spoken  by  all,  and  understood  by  all  as  signifying  these  rela- 
tions. 

(3.)  The  next  stage  or  act  is  when  the  relation  is  abstracted 
from  the  beings  to  which  it  belongs  and  is  generalized  into  a  con- 
cept higher  and  more  extensive,  which  is  treated  as  a  separate  en- 
tity. Thus  long,  short,  etc.,  are  contemplated  as  length  or  short- 
ness ;  round,  spherical,  etc.,  are  known  as  roundness  and  spheri- 
city ;  past,  present,  and  future  are  known  as  time  relations  ;  the 
power  to  produce  this  or  that  effect  is  abstracted,  and  general- 
ized as  the  causative  relation ;  the  individual  fitness  to  accomplish 
this  or  that  end  is  generalized  and  abstracted  as  the  relation  of 
adaptation. 

This  third  stage  is  more  rarely  reached.  For  the  common  pur- 
poses of  life  men  have  little  occasion  to  view  these  attributes,  and 
relations  as  separate  entities,  and  still  less  to  carry  them  to  the 
higher  degrees  of  generalization.  Practical  men  have  little 
need  to  consider  or  to  speak  of  the  relations  of  time  and  space  or 
substance  or  cause,  when  separate  from  concrete  objects  and 
events,  and  when  generalized  in  abstract  language.  Even  think- 
ing men,  who  may  be  well  disciplined  and  practised  in  intellec- 
tual activities  of  other  kinds,  have  few  motives  and  little  inclina- 
tion to  deal  with  such  entities  in  their  more  abstract  forms. 

(4.)  The  fourth  stage  of  experiment  and  assent  is  the  critical 
consideration  of  the  processes  of  knowledge,  and  the  discern- 
ment of  these  relations  as  essential  elements  in  all  these  pro- 
cesses and  as  the  fundamental  principles  which  are  im. 
plied  in  them  all.  It  is  manifest  that  this  stage  is  reached 
only  by  a  few,  and  by  those  only  whose  attention  is  directed  to 
the  critical  examination  of  their  intellectual  processes,  and  to  a 
speculative  consideration  of  the  principles  which  they  involve. 

(5.)  The  last  stage  or  act  of  distinct  knowledge  is  the  recogni- 


§247.         THE   INTUITIONS   DEFINED   AND   ENUMERATED.  427 

tion  of  the  correlates,  usually  called  infinite  or  absolute,  which  are 
required  by  these  relations  when  they  are  generalized  and  reflected 
on.  Thus  the  relations  of  extension  when  apprehended  as  be- 
longing to  every  material  object,  i.  e.,  to  the  universe  in  its  parts 
and  as  a  whole,  imply  Space  as  their  correlate ;  those  of  dura- 
tion imply  the  correlate  of  Time ;  the  universe  conceived  as  a 
single  effect  implies  a  single  causing  agent — the  universe  con- 
ceived as  a  designed  effect  requires  that  this  agent  should  be  in- 
telligent. 

These  correlates  Space,  Time,  and  God,  are  conceived  as  the 
conditions  of  the  possibility  of  the  universe,  and  the  ground  of 
ite  reality,  and  are  therefore  the  first  principles  of  every  thing 
that  is  and  can  be  known. 

It  is  manifest,  for  the  reasons  already  given,  that  if  it  be  as- 
sumed that  there  are  such  correlates  to  these  finite  beings,  the  con- 
sideration of  them  as  the  real  and  the  necessary  principles  of  all  be- 
ings is  not  within  the  reach  of  the  majority  of  men.  It  requires 
a  capacity  for  the  highest  analysis  and  abstraction  of  which  the 
human  mind  is  capable.  It  supposes  an  interest  in  and  a  capa- 
city for  wider  generalizations  than  most  men  exhibit.  Few  men 
attain  to  these  ideas  through  processes  that  are  purely  specula- 
tive. Fewer  can  give  the  philosophical  reasons  by  which  they 
reach  and  on  which  they  receive  them. 

All  men  may  have  the  capacity  to  assent  to  truths  concerning 
them  when  propounded  in  terms  that  are  not  philosophical,  and 
enforced  by  reasons  that  are  not  abstract  and  speculative ;  but 
the  number  is  exceedingly  small  of  those  who  can  analyze  the 
processes  by  which  they  are  seen  to  be  necessary,  or  assent  to  them 
as  the  grounds  of  all  being  and  of  all  knowledge. 

This  review  of  the  several  stages  by  which  these  truths  are  de- 
veloped to  the  mind's  assent,  serves  to  explain  and  confirm  what 
has  already  been  asserted,  viz.,  that  though  first  in  authority  and 
in  logical  dependence,  they  are  the  last  in  the  order  of  time;  and 
that  though  all  men  manifest  a  practical  belief  in  these  princi- 
ples, when  exemplified  in  the  concrete,  yet  but  few  understand 
or  assent  to  them  when  stated  in  a  speculative  form. 

It  also  enables  us  to  understand  how  it  is  possible  that  they 
should  be  discovered  and  tested  in  a  variety  of  methods  suited  to 
the  condition  of  each  of  these  classes,  as  also  why  the  criteria 


428  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §247. 

which  satisfy  one  class  of  minds  should  neither  reach  nor  con- 
vince minds  of  another  class. 

What  is  most  important,  it  explains  why  the  evidence  for  their 
truth  and  universal  acceptance  which  is  furnished  by  the  lan- 
guage and  the  actions  of  men  is  more  decisive  and  satisfactory 
than  that  which  comes  by  speculative  analysis  or  philosophical 
argumentation. 

We  have  seen  that  all  men  reach  the  second  stage  of  know- 
ledge, so  far  as  to  apprehend  many  objects  in  one  or  all  of  these 
necessary  relations  to  some  other  object,  i.  e.,  as  substance  or 
attribute,  as  cause  or  effect,  as  means  or  end,  etc.  This  recogni- 
tion of  these  concrete  relations,  they  express  by  their  language  in 
appropriate  concrete  terms,  as  by  the  noun,  the  adjective,  the  vei'b, 
etc.,  in  the  various  forms  of  flexion  and  construction.  Few 
men  reach  the  third,  and  the  number  is  therefore  small  who  re- 
flect upon  the  relation  of  causation  when  it  is  generalized  from 
individual  instances,  or  who  ask  themselves  whether  it  is  uni- 
versal and  necessary  to  the  mind. 

And  yet  the  very  language  which  all  men  use  is  a  constant 
profession  of  their  faith  in  their  reality  and  importance.  Almost 
every  sentence  which  they  frame  and  word  which  they  employ  is 
a  voluntary  acknowledgment,  that  these  intuitions  are  necessarily 
accepted  by  all  men.  When  they  act,  every  one  of  their  expecta- 
tions and  deeds  is  a  more  decisive  avowal  that  these  principles 
are  absolutely  certain,  and  never  admit  an  exception. 

This  review  also  explains  how  it  can  be  that  men  may  reject 
truths  in  theory  which  they  admit  in  fact.  In  other  words,  it 
explains  the  apparent  paradox  that  there  may  be  truths  which 
men  always  recognize  in  their  actions,  but  deny  or  question  when 
they  are  phrased  as  speculative  or  philosophical  propositions. 

Such  propositions  must  always  be  expressed  in  the  language  of 
the  Schools,  that  is  in  language  which  is  abstract  and  therefore  to 
a  certain  extent  technical  in  its  signification.  They  must  be  de- 
f-nded  by  philosophical  evidence,  the  evidence  that  is  appropriate 
in  the  Schools  ;  which  often  rests  upon  principles  with  which  the 
mind  is  by  no  means  familiar,  and  is  enforced  by  methods  of 
reasoning  to  which  it  has  not  been  trained  or  wonted. 

We  are  justified  in  appealing  from  the  philosophy  of  men  to 
their  words  and  actions.  What  all  men  inadvertently  confess  in 


§  248.         THE  INTUITIONS  DEFINED  AND  ENUMEKATED.  429 

their  casual  assertions,  what  they  imply  in  the  very  forms  of  their 
language,  what  their  actions  unbiased  by  their  theories  show  that 
they  recognize,  what  their  expectations  from  others  show  that 
they  believe  that  their  fellow-men  also  accept,  what  is  assumed  in 
all  investigations  and  reasonings  without  the  attempt  to  give  any 
reasons  for  its  truth, — these  are  all  taken  to  be  or  to  involve  uni- 
versal and  necessary  truths  of  Intuition,  however  difficult  it  may 
be  to  define  them  correctly,  to  reconcile  them  with  the  dicta  of  a 
received  philosophy,  or  to  show  their  place  in  any  order  of  syste- 
matic arrangement. 

§  248.    The  philosophical  criteria  of  the  categories 

The  Three  Cri- 

and  first  truths  are  usually  stated  as  three:    'their  teria  of  first 
universality,   their  necessity,   and  their  logical  inde- 
pendence and  originality.' 

(1.)  First  truths  are  universally  received.  If  they  are  not  uni- 
versal they  can  be  neither  necessary  nor  logically  independent 
and  original.  But  in  what  sense  are  they  understood  and  by 
what  evidence  can  they  be  shown  to  be  universal  ?  Surely  not  in 
this,  that  all  men  actually  assent  to  them,  when  propounded  in  a 
scientific  form  and  phraseology. 

This  as  we  have  seen  is  from  the  nature  of  the  case  impossible, 
inasmuch  as  all  men  are  by  no  means  capable  of  understanding 
the  terms  and  grasping  the  conceptions  which  enter  into  them. 
But  all  men  can  believe  them  in  the  concrete,  i.  e.,  in  every  indi- 
vidual case  in  which  they  are  exemplified,  without  knowing  that 
thereby  they  presuppose  knowledge,  which,  when  stated  in  its 
abstract  form,  would  involve  the  principles  in  question. 

(2.)  First  truths  are  also  necessary.  Truths  to  be  universal 
and  primitive  must  be  necessary,  i.  e.,  the  intellect  must  be  con- 
strained by  the  constitution  of  its  being  and  the  spontaneous 
workings  of  its  nature  to  receive  them  as  true.  It  cannot  know 
objects  of  any  kind  except  under  these  relations  and  according  to 
the  connections  which  they  involve.  Should  it  attempt  to  do  so, 
or  to  prove  that  it  does  not  employ  and  recognize  them,  it  would 
make  the  effort  of  knowing  without  them,  and  of  proving  that  it 
did  not,  by  using  these  very  relations  in  its  efforts  and  its 
arguments. 

(3.)  First  truths  must  be  logically  prior  to,  and  independent  of, 
all  other  truths.  Each  one  of  them  is  the  most  generic  concept 


430  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  248. 

of  many  similar  individual  relations.  It  can  be  itself  resolved 
into  no  other,  and  can  be  proved  by  no  other. 

This  is  what  Burner  must  intend,  when  he  says,  "  they  are 
propositions  so  clear  that  they  can  neither  be  proved  nor  attacked 
by  any  propositions  more  clear  than  themselves."  Hamilton 
means  the  same  when  he  calls  them  incomprehensible,  defining 
the  term  to  signify,  that  of  which  we  know  the  fact,  but  cannot 
give  a  reason.  Hence  they  are  called  self-evident  truths  and  in- 
tuitions, because  they  need  only  to  be  seen  or  apprehended  to  be 
believed.  The  act  of  critical  or  speculative  intuition  is  not  an  act 
of  sense-perception  nor  an  act  at  all  analogous  to  it ;  but  an  act 
of  knowledge  which  is  direct  and  original  and  is  the  necessary 
condition  of  all  other  acts  of  knowing. 

It  follows  that  these  truths  are  neither  discovered  by  induction 
nor  generalized  from  experience.  That  they  are  not  the  results 
of  induction  has  been  shown  by  the  nature  of  induction  as 
revealed  in  the  analysis  already  given  of  the  process.  It  has 
been  shown  that  the  process  itself  involves  certain  assumptions 
as  true;  or  the  belief  of  certain  relations  as  original  and  self- 
evident.  Unless  we  begin  by  assuming  that  these  relations  are 
valid  and  original,  we  cannot  confide  in  the  process  of  induction 
itself.  Indeed,  without  these  assumptions,  the  process  can  have 
no  meaning. 

That  they  cannot  in  any  way  be  generalized  from  experience 
has  been  shown  by  the  analysis  already  given  of  their  relations 
to  experience.  J.  S.  Mill,  in  his  Logic,  contends  most  earnestly 
that  all  the  so-called  original  necessary  truths,  including  the 
postulates  of  mathematics,  are  derived  by  Induction  through 
experience.  The  considerations  already  adduced  are  decisive 
against  his  theory.  President  M'Cosh  entitled  the  earlier  editions 
of  his  able  work,  Intuitions  of  the  mind  Inductively  considered,  but 
he  used  Induction  in  a  general  and  popular  sense. 

Nor  can  they  be  regarded  as  the  highest  premises  for  compre- 
hensive syllogisms,  obtained  by  successive  processes  of  regressively 
evolving  the  premises  or  assumptions  on  which  narrower  syllo- 
gisms are  founded.  This  view  has  been  countenanced,  if  it  has 
not  been  taught  directly,  by  philosophers  of  very  high  authority. 
Cf.  Dr.  Thomas  Reid,  Essays,  VI.  c.  iv.  Aristotle,  Anal. 
Post.  i.  3 ;  cf.  i.  22.  Cf.  McCosh,  Intuitions  of  the  Human  Mind, 


§  249.         THE  INTUITIONS  DEFINED  AND  ENUMERATED.  431 

Part  i.  B.  i.  c.  ii.  §  1  (6).     Buffier,  Traite  d.  prem.  ver.  Dessein, 
etc,  §  6. 

It  is,  however,  one  thing  to  show  that  without  first  truths  no 
deduction  is  possible,  and  quite  another  to  show  that  such  truths 
must  be  employed  as  the  ultimate  premises  in  the  most  compre- 
hensive deductions.  The  analysis  already  given  of  the  deductive 
process  has  shown  that  it  rests  primarily  upon  the  relation  of 
reason  to  conclusion,  which  in  its  turn  rests  upon  the  relation 
of  cause  to  effect.  It  has  also  shown  that  the  materials  for 
deduction  are  all  derived  from  induction,  or  mental  construction — 
as  in  mathematical  or  purely  logical  reasoning.  First  truths,  or 
intuitive  relations  are  implied  as  in  one  sense  the  support  or 
foundation  of  the  processes  of  deduction,  but  not  in  the  way  of 
serving  as  ultimate  premises. 

Were  we  to  consider  the  process  of  deduction  solely  in  its 
logical  relations,  we  should  clearly  see  that  these  truths  could 
serve  no  use  as  premises.  Nothing  could  be  proved  by  such  uni- 
versal and  wide-reaching  propositions  as  every  event  must  be 
caused,  etc.,  etc.  For  as  soon  as  you  interpose  the  minor,  '  this 
explosion  is  an  event,'  you  make  no  progress  towards  additional 
knowledge  in  the  conclusion  :  you  know  already  that  this  explo- 
sion was  an  event :  you  could  not  have  known  it  at  all  without 
having  already  decided  that  it  was  one  of  the  things  that  are 
caused. 

For  the  purposes  of  deduction,  all  such  principles  are  barren 
and  useless.  Nothing  can  be  derived  from  them.  From  their 
very  nature,  they  are  simply  statements  concerning  those  relations 
or  elements,  that  are  present  in  every  act  of  our  higher  know- 
ledge. It  is  only  because  they  are  present  as  an  essential  and 
necessary  element  in  all  these  processes  that  they  must  of  neces- 
sity be  conditions  of  deduction. 

§  249.  These  intuitions  or  categories,  are  in  the  Theyarninde_ 
strict  sense  of  the  term  logically  independent  of  one  J^"r* of  une 
another.  Their  apparent  dependence  upon  one  an- 
other arises  from  the  limits  of  the  human  intellect,  which  pre- 
scribe a  certain  order  in  the  familiar  acquisition  of  these  con- 
cepts and  in  the  frequency  and  extent  of  their  application. 

The  observation  is  very  common  that  by  a  logical  necessity  we 
must  think  of  being  before  we  think  of  its  relations  or  attributes ; 


432  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §249. 

of  time  before  we  think  of  space  ;  of  all  these  before  we  think 
of  cause,  and  of  these  together  with  causation  before  we  think 
of  design ;  or,  as  expressed  in  other  language :  Being  is  funda- 
mental to  all  other  categories,  and  must  be  presupposed  before 
and  as  the  condition  of  them  all :  and  in  a  similar  manner  the  less 
must  precede  the  more  dependent  till  the  entire  circle  is  complete. 
But  no  one  of  these  categories  can  be  developed  from  another. 
If  it  could  be  it  would  not  be  primitive  and  original.  Nor  can 
one  be  explained  into  or  resolved  by  another.  None  of  them  is 
properly  complex,  for  if  this  we/e  so,  each  of  the  constituent  ele- 
ments ^vould  be  original  and  primitive,  but  not  their  constituted 
whole.  They  cannot  be  dependent  in  the  relation  of  content;  for 
the  import  of  one  cannot  be  resolved  into  that  of  another.  Nor 
is  one  more  extensive  than  the  other,  so  far  as  the  real  objects  are 
concerned  to  which  each  may  possibly  be  applied.  Every  object 
that  exists  must  be  conceived  as  existing,  as  diverse  from 
others,  as  related  to  others,  as  whole  or  part,  as  in  time  and 
space,  as  capable  of  number,  etc.,  etc.  Were  the  mind  capable 
of  attending  to  all  these  conceivable  relations  of  every  existing 
object  by  a  single  intuitive  act ;  were  it  not  dependent  upon  the 
slow  processes  of  observation  and  induction  to  learn  which  is 
related  to  which  as  cause  and  effect,  power  and  law,  means  and 
end,  these  relations  would  be  equally  extensive  in  their  applica- 
tion, and  would  all  be  co-ordinate  with  one  another  in  the  view 
of  the  human  as  they  are  before  the  divine  mind.  But  inas- 
much as  the  human  mind  proceeds  in  its  knowledge  step  by  step, 
some  of  these  relations  are  familiarly  and  far  more  extensively 
applied  than  others.  Some  of  them  are  applied  to  objects  of 
imagination  and  thought,  while  others  are  more  rarely  affirmed 
even  of  things.  The  relations  of  dependence  between  them 
are  chronological  and  psychological  but  not  logical. 

This  attempt  to  develop  the  categories  from  one  another  was 
Hegel's  devel-  carried  to  its  extreme  by  Hegel,  who  began  with  being,  and 
categories.  *  °  making  being  to  be  equal  to  nothing,  i.  e.,  to  have  no  content, 
sought  by  what  he  called  its  becoming,  i.  e.,  the  independent  and 
necessary  movement  of  the  concept,  to  evolve  all  the  categories  from  one  another, 
not  only  of  thought  but  of  material  and  spiritual  existence,  in  a  self-completing 
and  perpetually  repeated  circle.  This  self-evolved  and  self-completing  circle  of 
necessary  concepts  was  conceived  by  him  as  the  Idea,  and  all  these  together  con- 
stituted the  Absolute,  i.  e.,  the  sum  total  of  mutually-related  possible,  and  conceiv- 
able thoughts  and  things. 


§  250.  THEORIES  OF  INTUITIVE  KNOWLEDGE,  433 

Hegel's  mistake  was  twofold.  He  attempted  to  derive  thirgs  from  thoughts, 
or  real  from  loyical  relations,  instead  of  finding  all  logical,  i  «..  all  generalized 
relations  in  those  which  are  real.  He  attempted  to  derive  one  category  from  an- 
other, instead  of  explaining  the  apparent  dependence  of  one  upon  another  by 
the  order  in  which  they  are  developed  to,  and  the  extent  iii  which  they  are 
applied  by,  the  mind  through  its  psychological  limitations. 

§  250.  The  categories  or  intuitions  may  be  divided 
into  the  formal,  the  mathematical,  and  the  real.  The  t^™^s™tj 
formal  are  those  which  are  involved  in  any  act  of 
logical  knowledge,  whatever  be  its  object-matter — whether  it 
be  real,  imagined,  or  generalized— whether  it  be  an  actually  exist- 
ing or  a  purely  mental  creation.  They  are  essential  to  the  most 
abstract  form  of  knowledge,  and  appear  in  all  its  objects  or 
products.  The  mathematical  are  those  which  grow  out  of  the 
existence  of  space  and  time  and  suppose  these  to  be  realities. 
The  relations  included  under  this  definition  are  not  exclusively 
used  in  the  sciences  of  number  and  quantity,  bur  inasmuch  as 
they  are  fundamental  to  these  sciences,  we  distinguish  them  by 
the  epithet  mathematical ;  using  it  to  designate  all  the  time  and 
space  relations  and  those  directly  dependent  upon  them.  The 
real  are  those  which  are  ordinarily  recognised  as  generic  to  and 
fundamental  of  the  so-called  qualities  and  properties  of  existing 
things,  both  material  and  spiritual.  We  do  not,  however,  by 
using  the  term  real,  imply  or  concede  that  the  formal  and  the 
mathematical  are  any  the  less  real — but  that  they  are  not  limited 
so  exclusively  to  objects  really  existing. 


CHAPTER  H. 

THEORIES   OF   INTUITIVE   KNOWLEDGE. 

A  complete  sketch  of  the  various  theories  which  have  been  held  in  respect  to 
the  nature,  origin,  and  authority  of  primitive  notions  and  intuitive  judgments, 
would  include  the  most  important  portion  of  a  complete  history  of  Metaphysics 
or  Speculative  Philosophy.  Such  a  sketch  would  be  entirely  out  of  place  in  the 
present  work,  and  will  not  be  attempted.  We  shall  only  endeavor  to  group  and 
critically  examine,  under  a  few  comprehensive  titles,  those  theories  which  have 
any  present  interest  for  modern  thought,  or  which  are  still  maintained  in  modem 
schools  of  philosophy. 

19 


434  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §253. 

$  251.  1.  It  has  been  extensively  taught  that  these  original  ideas 
Fne  theory  of  an(j  grgj.  £ruths  are  discerned  by  direct  insight  or  intuition  inde- 
vision  of  first  pendently  of  any  relations  to  phenomena.  The  power  to  behold 
them  is  conceived  as  a  special  sense  for  the  true,  the  original,  and 
the  infinite;  as  a  divine  Reason  which  is  permitted  to  gaze  directly  upon  tha? 
which  is  eternally  true.  Such  are  the  representations  of  Plato,  Plotinus,  etc., 
among  the  ancients.  Thus  the  Platonizing  and  Cartesian  divines  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  as  Henry  More,  John  Smith  of  Cambridge,  Ralph  Cudworth,  and 
multitudes  of  others,  freely  express  themselves.  Malebranche,  Schelling,  Coleridge, 
Cousin,  and  others,  have  given  sanction  to  such  views  more  or  less  clearly  con- 
ceived and  expressed.  Those  who  combine  with  philosophic  acuteness,  the  power 
of  vivid  imagination  and  eloquent  exposition,  not  infrequently  meet  the  diffi- 
culties which  attend  the  analysis  and  explanation  of  the  foundations  of  knowledge 
by  these  half-poetic  and  half-philosophic  representations. 

It  is  manifest  that  the  representations  which  they  give  are  not  true  when  liter- 
ally interpreted.  No  direct  inspection  of  primitive  ideas  and  principles  is  con- 
.ceivable.  It  is  not  by  withdrawing  the  attention  from,  but  by  fixing  it  upon,  the 
facts  and  phenomena  of  the  actual  world,  that  the  truths  and  relations  of  the 
world  which  is  ideal  and  rational  can  be  discerned  at  all. 

§  252.  2.  Many  of  the  earlier  philosophers  and  theologians  of 
The  theory  that  modern  times,  following  the  Scholastics  of  the  middle  ages,  were 
they  are  dis-  accustomed  to  say  that  these  ideas  and  truths  are  discerned  by  the 
light  of  nature,  light  of  reason  and  the  light  of  nature,  that  they  shine  forth  or  are 
evidenced  by  their  own  light.  The  use  of  this  language  is  in  part 
to  be  traced  to  the  often-repeated  maxim  of  Aristotle  that  some  truths  cannot  be 
demonstrated,  but  must  be  accepted  without  proof;  in  part  by  a  Platonic  interpre- 
tation of  the  passage  in  the  gospel  of  John  (i.  9),  in  which  the  Word  is  said  to 
enlighten  every  man  who  cometh  into  the  world. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  phrase  is  figurative  and  expresses  only  the  fact  which  re- 
mains to  be  explained  and  accounted  for,  that  these  truths  are  neither  generalized 
from  experience  nor  deduced  by  logical  ratiocination ;  that  they  are  no  sooner 
thought  of  than  they  are  assented  to,  and  that  upon  them  as  original  assumptions 
rests  the  validity  of  all  generalization  and  deduction. 

§  253.  3.  The  doctrine  has  been  earnestly  held  and  taught  that 
That  they  are  these  ideas  and  beliefs  are  innate  in  or  connate  with  the  soul.  This 
imiate  i  i-  .g  ^^  known  as  the  doctrine  which  Descartes  is  supposed  to  have 
taught,  and  to  the  refutation  of  which  Locke  devoted  the  first  book 
of  his  Essay.  It  is  that  the  intellect  finds  itself  at  birth  or  as  soon  as  it  wakes 
to  conscious  activity,  to  be  possessed  of  ideas  to  which  it  has  only  to  attach  the 
appropriate  names,  or  of  judgments  which  it  needs  only  to  express  in  fit  proposi- 
tions. Whether  this  doctrine  as  thus  stated  and  defined,  was  ever  held  by  any 
one  may  perhaps  be  questioned.  Even  Descartes  himself  seems,  when  pressed, 
wholly  to  abandon  the  doctrine  in  the  form  in  which  he  had  propounded  it  and  made 
it  the  foundation  of  the  most  important  conclusions. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  would  be  conceded  by  many,  and  can  be  defended  as  true, 
that  the  capacity  to  evolve  these  ideas  and  these  truths  is  born  with  man  and 
forms  an  essential  feature  of  his  constitution  as  man.  Not  only  is  man  endowed 
with  these  capacities,  but  he  is  furnished  with  tendencies  which  impel  to  their 
exercise,  and  after  which  these  conceptions  and  judgments  are  surely  and  neces- 


§  254.  THEORIES  OF  INTUITIVE  KNOWLEDGE.  435 

earily  developed  so  soon  as  the  mind  applies  the  necessary  attention  or  awakes  to 
the  requisite  conditions.  Even  before  these  conceptions  are  generalized  they  are 
assented  to  in  the  individual  and  concrete,  in  the  most  important  kinds  of  know- 
ledge. 

§  254.  4.  From  the  doctrine  of  innate  ideas  and  the  school  of 
Descartes,  the  transition  is  natural  and  direct  to  the  views  held  by       The  views  of 
Locke  and  the  several  divisions  of  his  school.     These  are  naturally 


grouped  together,  though  the  interpretations  of  the  meaning  of 
Locke  are  very  diverse,  and  the  several  schools  that  are  named  after  Locke,  hold 
opposite  and  incompatible  opinions.  It  will  be  found,  however,  that  they  can  all 
be  traced  to  Locke,  either  as  they  are  sanctioned  by  his  direct  authority  or  were 
derived  from  some  of  his  principles  by  logical  deduction  or  natural  growth,  or  as 
they  were  devised  to  supplement  some  of  his  supposed  oversights  or  defects. 

Locke,  as  is  well  known,  rejected  the  doctrine  of  innate  ideas  and  protested 
most  vigorously  against  it,  in  the  first  book  of  his  Essay.  This  protest  was  of 
the  greatest  service  to  philosophy  in  delivering  it  from  the  vague  and  fantastical 
assertions  upon  this  subject  which  had  been  allowed  before  his  time.  It  has 
been  questioned  and  may  be  doubted,  whether  any  sober  and  considerate  thinker 
ever  received  the  doctrine  in  the  form  and  sense  in  which  Locke  rejected  it.  But 
it  is  certain  that  many  philosophical  writers  have  expressed  themselves  in 
language  which  warranted  the  interpretations  which  Locke  thought  it  necessary 
to  refute. 

But  Locke  did  not  guard  himself  against  serious  oversights  in  this  polemic. 
He  did  not  distinguish  between  those  positive  ideas  of  objects  and  acts  in  both 
matter  and  spirit  which  make  up  the  materials  or  facts  of  knowledge  —  and  the 
relations  between  these  materials,  which,  if  possible,  are  more  important  than  the 
facts  which  they  connect.  Nor  did  he  conceive  at  all  the  difference  between  an 
idea  as  acquired  by  experience  and  as  occasioned  by  experience.  He  did  not  dis- 
cern that  a  relation  which  is  developed  by  experience  to  conscious  apprehension, 
must  be  implied  or  assumed  to  make  experience  possible.  He  did  not  distinguish 
between  innate  ideas  and  innate  dispositions  or  capacities  to  develop  and  assent 
to  truths  which  involve  original  ideas.  To  correct  these  oversights,  Leibnitz 
subjoined  his  well-known  reply  to  the  adage,  "  nihil  in  intelleclu  quod  non  priua 
in  sensu  "  —  "  nisi  ipse  intellects." 

Locke  asserts  positively  that  all  our  ideas  are  obtained  through  two  sources, 
Sensation  and  Reflection  :  Sensation  gives  the  knowledge  of  sensible  objects  and 
their  qualities;  Reflection  gives  the  knowledge  of  spirit  and  its  operations.  He 
was  careful  to  add  that  except  through  these  two  sources  we  have  no  ideas  what- 
ever. What  Locke  intended  by  ideas  admits  here  of  a  question  similar  to  that 
which  was  noticed  in  connection  with  innate  ideas.  Did  he  mean  positively  to 
exclude  from  ideas  those  necessary  relations  by  which  the  mind  connects  all  the 
objects  of  matter  and  spirit  which  it  observes  or  experiences  ?  It  is  probable  that 
this  distinction  was  not  in  his  mind,  and  that  for  this  reason  he  did  not  provide 
against  uncertainty  or  ambiguity  of  interpretation.  It  was  not  unnatural  that 
different  constructions  should  be  put  upon  doctrines  thus  announced,  and  that  ac- 
cording to  these  diverse  interpretations,  there  should  spring  up  among  his  fol- 
lowers different  schools  of  philosophy. 

One  class  of  those  who  called  themselves  his  disciples,  by  greatly  limiting  or 
almost  setting  aside  his  definition  of  reflection,  interpreted  him  as  teaching  that 


436  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  254. 

all  our  positive  ideas  are  of  material  objects,  and  perverted  his  principles  so  as  to 
make  him  teach  a  materialistic  philosophy.  Condillao  thus  applied  his  doctrine, 
and  derived  from  it  the  conclusion  that  all  our  ideas,  whether  those  of  sense 
or  spirit,  are  simply  transformed  sensations.  "  LocLe  distingue  deux  sources  do 
nos  idees :  les  sens  et  la  reflexion.  II  serait  plus  exact  de  n'en  reconnaitre  qu'une 
source,  parce  que  la  reflexion  n'est  dans  son  principe  que  la  sensation  elle  nieine, 
soit  parce  qu'elle  est  moins  la  source  des  idees  que  le  canal  par  lequel  elles  decou- 
lent  des  sens." — Traite  des  Sensations.  This  doctrine  in  the  form  in  which  it  was 
taught  by  Condillac  and  by  others  of  the  French  school,  was  long  since  aban- 
doned, but  tendencies  to  the  same  doctrine,  if  not  to  the  same  opinions  in  respect 
to  the  nature  and  origin  of  mental  activities  and  their  products,  retain  their  hold 
most  tenaciously  among  many  modern  psychologists,  such  as  J.  S.  Mill  and 
Alexander  Bain  with  others. 

Hume  (Treatise  on  Human  Nature,  Part  III.,§  g  2,  3,  4,  14,  15;  Inquiry  con- 
cerning the  Human  Understanding,  $  7,)  applied  Locke's  dictum  in  respect 
to  the  sources  of  knowledge,  to  the  analysis  of  the  relation  of  causation,  or  as  he 
called  it,  of  the  ideas  of  Cause  and  Effect,  and  of  Necessary  Connection.  He  first 
demonstrates,  as  it  is  easy  to  do,  that  these  ideas  are  not  to  be  gained  from  Sen- 
sation. He  then  inquires  whether  they  can  be  gained  by  Reflection,  or  the  con- 
scious experience  which  we  have  of  the  exercise  of  power  in  the  production  of 
effects  by  volition.  To  this  he  answers  in  the  negative,  experience  giving  us 
only  the  invariable  succession  or  the  constant  conjunction  of  these  internal 
ideas. 

How  then,  he  asks,  does  it  happen  that  we  connect  objects  as  causes  and  effects, 
and  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  combination  ?  We  certainly  do  thus  connect 
them,  and  we  give  to  them  as  thus  connected  the  names  respectively  of  causes  and 
effects.  To  his  own  question,  he  replies :  Objects  which  are  observed  to  be  always 
conjoined,  we  invariably  associate  in  our  minds :  When  we  observe  the  one  we 
cannot  avoid  thinking  of  the  other :  The  principle  of  association  is  that  which 
explains,  and  it  is  the  only  mental  law  that  explains,  the  combination  of  objects 
and  events  as  causes  and  effects. 

The  solution  applied  by  Hume  to  the  single  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  has 
since  his  time  been  applied  to  the  explanation  of  other  of  the  so-called  necessary 
truths  or  primitive  cognitions.  Dugald  Stewart  used  it  to  account  for  the  belief 
that  every  visible  or  colored  object  involves  a  belief  in,  and  an  apprehension  of 
extension.  Dr.  Thomas  Brown  carried  it  still  farther,  applying  it  to  a  great  num- 
ber of  relations.  James  Mill,  in  his  Analysis  of  the  Human  Mind,  was  the  first  to 
find  in  the  doctrine  of  inseparable  or  indissoluble  associations  a  solvent  for  all 
necessary  beliefs  and  original  conceptions.  John  Stuart  Mill,  his  son,  in  his 
Logic  and  Examination  of  the  Philosophy  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  has  applied 
this  principle  in  detail  to  all  the  so-called  original  and  necessary  truths  with  the 
conceptions  which  they  involve  j  persisting  in  attempting  to  show  by  this  single  for- 
mula that  mathematical  conceptions  and  axioms  are  generalized  from  experience, 
that  the  universal  and  necessary  belief  in  causation  is  itself  the  product  of  induction, 
which  again  results  from  associations  that  cannot  be  overcome  or  separated. 
Herbert  Spencer,  while  on  the  one  hand  he  earnestly  contends  that  inconceivability 
of  the  opposite  is  the  decisive  test  of  original  truths,  holds  that  these  very 
axioms  are  our  earliest  inductions  from  experience.  Moreover,  he  holds  that  tho 
capacity  of  induction  itself  is  not  only  the  result  of  processes  of  association,  but 


§  255.  THEORIES  OF  INTUITIVE  KNOWLEDGE.  437 

these  descend  from  one  generation  to  another  with  an  augmented  tendency,  till 
they  acquire  that  irresistible  force  which  excludes  the  conceivability  of  other  re- 
lations. All  these  writers  may  be  said  to  belong  to  the  school  of  Locke,  but  they 
receive  only  one  or  two  of  his  leading  doctrines  and  interpret  them  in  a  narrow 
spirit,  and  apply  them  to  explain  conceptions  and  beliefs  to  which  Locke  never 
thought  of  applying  them. 

I  255.  5.  Dr.  Thomas  Reid,  with  Hutcheson,  Oswald,  and  Beat- 
tie,  was  aroused  by  the  skeptical  conclusions  derived  by  Hume  and  Dr.  Reid  and 
Berkeley  from  the  doctrines  of  Locke,  to  combat  his  principle  as  School, 
it  had  till  then  been  interpreted — that  all  ideas  are  obtained  from 
sensation  or-reflection— and  to  assert  for  the  mind  itself  an  independent  power  or 
source  of  knowledge.  This  power  was  called  by  him  Common  Sense,  and  to  it 
was  referred  our  belief  in  the  original  and  fundamental  elements  of  all  knowledge. 
Reid  was  especially  earnest  in  asserting  the  necessity  of  first  principles  as  the 
foundations  of  knowledge  in  general  and  of  every  special  science  in  particular. 
Of  these  principles  there  is  a  great  variety — logical,  grammatical,  mathematical, 
moral,  sesthetical,  metaphysical,  as  well  as  those  facts  given  in  the  experiences  of 
sense  and  consciousness.  All  these  are  discerned  by  that  power  which  he  called 
common  sense,  and  occasionally  judgment.  The  nature  and  the  conditions  of  this 
faculty  he  did  not  exactly  define,  nor  its  relations  to  other  powers,  nor  the  laws  of 
its  acting,  nor  the  character  and  place  of  its  products.  He  was  content  to  assert 
that  there  must  be  a  source  of  this  kind  of  knowledge  independently  of  experience, 
and  that  these  first  truths  are  to  be  received  upon  its  authority.  Dugald  Stewart 
followed  Reid  in  insisting  upon  "fundamental  laws  of  human  belief,"  and  "  ori- 
ginal elements  of  human  knowledge."  He,  however,  subjected  to  analysis  some 
of  those  truths  which  were  asserted  by  Reid  to  be  original,  and  allowed  to  the 
law  of  association  an  influence  which  Reid  had  not  recognized.  Brown  deviated 
materially  from  Reid  and  Stewart  in  attaching  greater  importance,  in  his  analysis 
of  our  conceptions,  to  the  laws  of  association.  He  resolved  the  relation  of  cause 
and  effect  into  that  of  invariable  antecedence  and  succession.  He  occasionally 
refers  to  some  original  belief  or  tendency  to  belief  as  necessary  to  explain  our 
actual  experience.  He  also  distinctly  recognized  a  faculty  or  power  called  rela- 
tive suggestion,  which  of  itself  originates  or  discerns  certain  original  relations; 
making  it,  like  Reid's  judgment,  to  be  the  originator  of  and  voucher  for  these 
original  relations  or  categories.  His  systent  is  not  always  congruous  or  consist- 
ent with  itself,  inasmuch  as  he  attributes  greater  authority  at  one  time  to  the 
associational,  and  at  another  to  the  intuitional  element. 

In  France,  Royer  Collard  and  Jouffroy  followed  in  general  the  me'hod  and  the 
doctrines  of  Reid,  with  a  more  analytic  scrutiny  and  a  more  systematic 
arrangement  of  the  original  data  of  knowledge.  Each  of  these  writers  made 
some  important  improvements  upon  the  doctrines  of  their  teachers. 

Maine  de  Birmi  followed  out  the  doctrine  of  Locke  in  respect  to  Reflection,  and 
attempted  to  find  in  Reflection  the  source  of  some  important  first  truths.  He 
went  further  than  Locke  in  this  direction  and  borrowed  from  Leibnitz  some  im- 
portant modifications  of  Locke's  teachings  in  respect  to  the  nature  of  power  and 
the  essential  activity  of  the  mind  as  a  discoverer  of  original  and  independent 
truth.  Cousin  sought  to  unite  Reid,  Collard  and  Kant. 

These  writers  might  perhaps  be  more  properly  grouped  together  as  belonging 
to  a  separate  school— the  Scottish,  or  the  Scottish  and  French  School.  But  a  more 


438  THE   HUMAN  INTELLECT.  §256. 

careful  study  of  the  doctrines  of  Locke  reveals  the  fact  that  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  Essay,  when  he  came  to  analyze  and  account  for  the  ideas  of  relation,  parti- 
cularly of  such  primitive  relations  as  substance,  cause,  and  adaptation,  he  departs 
from  the  doctrines  which  he  was  supposed  to  have  laid  down  in  the  preceding 
chapters.  He  certainly  did  not  place  that  construction  upon  them  which  many 
of  his  disciples  imposed  after  his  time.  In  accounting  for  these  original  ideas, 
he  seems  to  ascribe  them  directly  to  the  intellect  itself,  and  to  an  original  power 
to  discern,  and  an  original  necessity  to  receive  them  as  true.  In  short,  without 
asserting,  in  form,  any  new  source  of  ideas,  and  without  in  the  least  abandoning 
his  previous  teachings — while  in  reply  to  the  objections  which  were  brought 
against  him  for  inconsistency,  he  earnestly  defends  his  own  consistency 
with  himself — he  does  in  fact  take  the  same  ground  with  Reid  and  the  Scottish 
School.  Cf.  (T.  E.  Webb.  Intellectualism  of  Locke.) 

If  this  is  a  correct  interpretation  of  Locke's  real  opinions,  then  Reid  and 
his  disciples  are  properly  connected  with  the  school  of  Locke,  notwithstanding 
their  earnest  polemic  against  some  of  the  doctrines  which  they  supposed  him  to 
teach. 

$  256.  6.  From  Hume  and  Reid,  who  were  antagonist  disciples 
Kant  and  his  jn  ^e  school  of  Locke,  we  pass  to  the  speculations  of  Kant,  and 
consider  his  views  of  first  principles  and  the  categories.  Kant,  like 
Reid,  was  aroused  by  the  skepticism  of  Hume  to  investigate  the  foundations  of 
knowledge.  He  saw  that  if  the  solution  given  by  Hume  of  the  relation  of  causa- 
tion were  accepted  and  applied  to  others  which  are  as  original  and  fundamental, 
then  scientific  knowledge  would  be  impossible,  and  religious  faith  would  be  un- 
supported by  any  rational  foundations.  He  therefore  set  himself  to  the  work  of 
examining,  by  critical  analysis,  the  intellectual  powers,  to  ascertain,  if  possible, 
whether  knowledge  a  priori  is  possible,  and  if  so,  what  must  be  its  original  ele- 
ments and  authority.  The  results  of  his  critical  inquiries  were  as  follows :  The 
human  intellect  may  be  considered  as  Sense,  Understanding,  and  Reason,  and  to 
each  of  these  powers  or  modes  of  action,  there  are  elements  a  priori.  To  the 
Sense,  space  and  time  must  be  assumed  as  a  priori  conditions.  If  these  are  not 
thus  assumed,  neither  perception  nor  consciousness  could  possibly  gain  the  know- 
ledge appropriate  to  each.  Moreover,  unless  the  knowledge  of  both  space  and 
time  is  a  priori,  the  mathematical  sciences  would  be  impossible. 

The  Understanding  is  the  power  of  generalizing  and  of  logical  reasoning.  To 
this,  certain  forms  of  conception  are  also  necessary  as  its  a  priori  conditions, 
such  as  substance  and  attribute,  and  cause  and  effect.  Without  these  forms  a  priori, 
the  processes  of  the  Understanding  would  be  impossible  and  their  products  would 
be  untrustworthy. 

The  Reason  is  the  power  by  which  we  give  unity  to  our  knowledge  of  both 
material  and  spiritual  phenomena,  as  well  in  the  several  portions  of  each,  as  when 
these  portions  are  mutually  connected  and  related  with  one  another.  To  this 
unifying  process,  there  must  be  assumed,  as  necessary  presuppositions,  certain 
ideas  a  priori,  viz.:  the  soul,  the  external  world,  and  God. 

The  a  priori  elements  of  our  knowledge,  according  to  Kant,  are  the  receptivi- 
ties of  space  and  time  for  the  Sense/  the  forms  or  categories  for  the  Understand- 
ing ;  and  the  ideas  for  the  fieason.  That  these  elements  are  assumed  and  applied 
in  all  our  higher  knowledge,  was  shown  by  Kant  to  follow  necessarily  from  the 
analysis  of  that  knowledge  which  is  gained  by  the  intellect,  and  indirectly  from 


§  256.  THEORIES  OP  INTUITIVE  KNOWLEDGE.  439 

the  direct  analysis  of  the  operations  of  its  several  powers.  These,  were  the 
positive  results  of  his  psychological  analysis. 

But  Kant  raised  another  inquiry.  Are  these  a  priori  and  necessary  assump- 
tions themselves  worthy  of  confidence  ?  Are  they  true,  and  do  they  hold  good  of 
the  nature  of  things,  or  do  they  simply  arise  from  the  constitution  of  the  human 
intellect — a  change  in  which  might  involve  a  change  in  these  necessary  relations 
and  in  the  knowledge  which  is  built  upon  them  ?  To  these  questions  of  his  own 
asking,  Kant  makes  the  following  reply:  These  assumptions  have  for  man  a 
regulative  force,  but  perhaps  only  a  relative  truth  and  validity.  That  is,  while 
man  must  act  in  his  intellectual  processes  under  the  belief  that  these  principles 
are  primary  and  universal,  and  thus  admit  them  as  giving  law  to  his  own  intel- 
lect, and  as  grounding  and  explaining  all  his  knowledge,  he  is  not  authorized 
thereby  to  assume  that  they  hold  good  as  the  laws  of  those  minds  which  may  be 
supposed  to  be  constituted  differently  from  the  human,  or  that  they  hold  true  of 
the  knowledge  which  such  minds  acquire.  On  the  one  hand,  we  cannot  deny  that 
they  do  hold  true  for 'other  beings  and  their  knowledge;'  and  on  the  other,  we 
cannot  deny  that  they  do  not.  For  aught  that  we  know,  it  may  be  true,  that 
other  beings  might  be  so  constituted  as  not  to  assume  these  principles,  or  to  know 
by  means  of  the  relations  which  they  involve.  We  cannot  affirm  that  there  are 
such  beings.  We  cannot  deny  that  there  may  be.  We  cannot  conceive  how  there 
should  be.  We  cannot  imagine  intellectual  processes  that  do  not  run  back  into 
these  relations  and  principles,  nor  can  we  conceive  of  any  knowledge  which  is 
not  held  together  by  these  relations,  but  we  have  no  rational  ground  for  denying 
that  both  are  possible. 

This  is  the  last  result  of  the  critical  examination  to  which  Kant  subjected  the 
intellectual  faculty.  These  views  have  had  extensive  currency  among  the  phil- 
osophers of  Germany  and  England,  and  the  assertion  of  them  has  wrought  like 
leaven,  to  stimulate  inquiry  and  to  excite  to  counter  assertions.  Many  who  would 
not  accept  them  have  found  it  difficult  to  show  their  groundlessness  or  their  un- 
truth, in  part  or  in  whole.  Many  philosophers  who  have  followed  Kant  in  his 
analysis  of  the  foundations  of  our  knowledge,  have  felt  themselves  constrained 
to  enter  a  special  protest  against  these  views,  or  to  seek  to  vindicate  a  different 
theory. 

The  only  part  of  Kant's  theory  with  which  we  are  here  concerned  is  the  sug- 
gestion which  he  makes,  that  the  relations  and  principles  which  we  find  to  be 
original  and  assume  to  be  true  for  our  own  thinking  and  knowledge,  are  not  ne- 
cessarily true  and  valid  for  all  thinking  and  all  knowledge. 

Concerning  this  we  observe : 

(1.)  It  is  a  question  of  Speculative  Philosophy  or  Metaphysics,  and  not  at  all 
a  question  of  Psychology.  Psychologically  considered,  the  views  of  Kant  do  not 
differ  materially  from  those  of  other  philosophers  so  far  as  the  proposition  is 
concerned,  that  certain  truths  must  be  received  as  universal  and  necessary,  and 
that  these  are  given  to  the  mind  a  priori.  It  is  one  chief  object  of  his  Critique 
to  show  that  such  principles  are  not  obtained  by  experience,  but  must  be  assumed 
in  order  to  make  experience  possible,  as  without  them  we  could  have  neither 
experience  nor  science. 

That  which  he  subjoins  to  this  ascertained  result  of  psychological  analysis,  is 
the  suggestion  that  this  may  be  true  in  human  psychology  only,  and  not  in  the 
psychology  of  other  knowing  beings.  Whatever  may  be  the  probability  or  rea 


440  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  256. 

sonableness  of  this  suggestion,  it  is  in  no  sense  a  psychological  fact.    It  is  purely 
a  philosophical  thesis,  to  be  urged  and  defended  on  speculative  grounds. 

(2.)  This  metaphysical  suggestion  or  thesis  is  unsupported  by  any  grounds  of 
analogy  or  probability.  The  facts  which  suggested  the  thesis  are  the  known 
changes  in  the  objects  of  sensi-perception,  which  are  connected  with  known 
changes  in  the  organism  of  the  percipient  or  in  the  medium  by  which  this  perci- 
pient apprehends.  These  changes  are  most  conspicuous  in  vision.  An  object 
seen  through  a  colored  lens,  be  it  red  or  green  or  blue,  is  seen  to  be  red  or  green  or 
blue.  In  like  manner,  the  color  of  objects  is,  to  a  limited  extent,  affected  by 
changes  in  the  physical  condition  of  the  eye.  Some  men,  through  disease,  see 
objects  colored  as  they  are  not  in  reality.  Others  are  incapable  of  seeing  any 
differences  of  color,  or  at  best,  only  a  few  varieties. 

Upon  analogies  derived  from  these  facts,  Kant  justifies  himself  in  asserting 
that  there  may  or  might  exist  created  or  finite  minds  which  know  other  relations 
than  those  of  time,  space,  substance,  causality.  To  this  it  is  enough  to  reply 
that  the  facts  from  which  these  suggestions  are  derived  are  phenomena  of  the  cor- 
poreal organism — while  the  acts  and  objects  to  which  they  are  applied  by  way  of 
analogy  pertain  to  the  pure  intellect.  We  know  moreover  of  the  phenomena  of 
the  organism,  that  the  corporeal  organism  is  a  factor  which,  with  material  condi- 
tions, not  only  presents  the  object  for  the  mind  to  perceive,  but  makes  it  to  be 
what  it  is  to  a  certain  extent,  so  that  the  object  changes  with  its  changing  factors 
and  conditions.  But  to  these  thoughts*  or  intellectual  relations  no  such  conditions 
are  required.  Certainly  the  objects  are  not  known  to  change  with  any  conditions. 
So  far  as  these  relations  are  applied  to  material  objects  it  makes  no  difference 
what  the  objects  are.  Many  are  equally  applicable  to  spiritual  beings,  and  their 
phenomena,  products,  and  trustworthiness  cannot  be  weakened  or  set  aside  by 
analogies  derived  from  material  beings  and  phenomena. 

All  positive  grounds  for  applying  any  analogies  of  the  kind  are  found  to  be 
wanting. 

(3.)  The  suggestion  of  Kant  is  inconsistent  with,  and  overthrown  by,  the  reach 
and  necessary  use  of  some  of  these  very  relations  which  are  brought  into  dis- 
trust. It  is  open  to  the  charge  of  being  an  intellectual  felo  de  se.  For  example, 
all  the  positive  ground  for  the  suggestion,  founded  upon  an  analogy  which  we  have 
seen  to  be  invalid  because  irrelevant,  rests  upon  one  of  these  first  truths  them- 
selves, one  of  these  very  original  relations,  which  Kant  subjects  to  metaphysical 
doubt  as  to  whether  it  may  not  be  merely  contingent  upon  the  human  constitu- 
tion. It  is  perfectly  clear  that  the  question  which  he  raises,  is  whether  know- 
ledge by  these  relations  as  a  subjective  process,  and  the  relations  themselves  as 
objective  facts,  may  not  be  and  probably  are,  effects  of  which  the  human  con- 
stitution is  a  cause.  We  notice  also  that  the  reason  by  which  he  supports  his 
suggestion  is,  that  we  are  justified  in  so  interpreting — which  we  have  shown  is 
misinterpreting — certain  signs  or  indications  furnished  by  analogous  phenomena. 
In  this  argument  it  will  be  obvious  to  all  our  readers  who  accept  the  analysis 
which  we  have  given  of  induction,  that  the  assumptions  which  he  contends  are 
only  regulative,  are  used  and  applied  by  him  as  though  they  were  real.  He  cer 
tainly  applies  with  entire  confidence,  the  relations  of  cause  and  effect  as  neces- 
sarily and  really  applicable  to  the  constitution  of  man  as  viewed  by  all  beinga 
whatever,  and  wholly  omits  to  notice  that  he  has  suggested  that  these  relation* 
necessarily  employed  in  human  thinking,  are  merely  contingent  upon  the  acci- 


§  258.  THEORIES  OF  INTUITIVE  KNOWLEDGE.  441 

dents  of  that  thinking,  and  may  not  belong  to  the  constitution  of  the  soul  as 
viewed  or  known  by  any  other  being,  whether  creature  or  Creator. 

This  is  not  all.  Not  only  are  they  used  as  though  they  were  real,  but  they  are 
used  as  real  in  order  to  prove  that  they  are  only  regulative.  He  reasons  thus: 
Upon  the  principles  to  which  I  must  conform  as  the  laws  of  my  human  thinking, 
do  I  conclude  that  it  is  more  than  probable  that  these  principles  themselves 
are  true  of  human  thinking  only.  How  convincing  and  consistent  such  reason- 
i»g  is,  it  is  easy  to  see. 

$  257.  7.  From  Kant  to  Hamilton  the  transition  is  natural,  be- 
cause the  connection  between  their  views  is  most  intimate.  Ham-  Positive  and 
ilton  holds  that  our  native  cognitions  are  both  Universal  and  Ne-  Negative  Ne- 
cessary. The  Necessity  of  a  cognition  may,  however,  be  of  two 
species.  It  may  be  either  Positive  or  Negative.  It  may  either  result  from  the 
power  of  the  thinking  principle,  or  from  the  powerleasness  of  the  same  to  think 
otherwise.  Of  Positive  Cognitions  he  says  :  "  To  this  class  belong  the  notion  of 
existence  and  its  modifications,  the  principles  of  identity,  contradiction,  and  ex- 
cluded middle,  and  the  intuitions  of  space  and  time."  All  these  are  discerned  by  tha 
mind  by  a  necessity  which  positively  pertains  to  the  objects  discerned  and  in  the 
reality  of  which  the  mind  absolutely  confides. 

To  the  other  class  belong  the  relations  of  Substance  and  Phenomena,  and  of 
Cause  and  Effect.  These  are  necessary  through  the  imbecility  of  the  mind  to 
conceive  of  existence  in  any  other  way  than  under  these  relations.  This  neces- 
sity is  only  a  special  case  of  the  application  of  the  more  general  law  of  the  con- 
ditioned;  which  in  its  turn  is  described  as  the  necessity  which  constrains  the 
mind  to  think  of  every  object  as  a  medium  between  two  extremes,  each  of  which 
is  respectively  contradictory  of  the  other  and  so  both  cannot  be  true,  while  yet 
the  mind  must  think  the  object  under  one  of  the  two. 

The  exposition  and  discussion  of  this  Law  of  the  Conditioned  may  be  deferred 
till  we  consider  its  application  to  the  special  conceptions  and  relations  of  Cause 
and  Effect.  (Cf.  I  297.) 

It  is  enough  to  say  here,  that  it  seems  to  be  in  its  principle  the  same  with  the 
doctrine  of  Kant,  that  certain  cognitions  are  necessary  to  the  mind  because  of  its 
peculiar  constitution,  which  would  no  longer  be  so  in  case  this  constitution  were 
changed  or  other  than  it  is.  They  are  therefore  Regulative  only,  that  is,  they 
control  the  actions  of  the  human  mind  and  their  products,  because  we  cannot 
avoid  employing  them,  knowing  all  the  while  that  we  are  obliged  to  do  this  be- 
causo  we  are  finite.  They  are  true  relatively,  i.  e.,  true  only  in  relation  to  our 
limited  capacities. 

We  urge  against  this  substantially  the  same  objections  to  which  the  doctrine  of 
Kant  is  liable,  viz. :  that  we  must  use  these  very  conceptions  which  are  said  to 
be  merely  Regulative  and  Relative,  in  the  very  judgments  which  we  form  of  the 
mind  and  these  very  relations;  and  again,  its  tendency  is  skeptical,  like  that  of 
Kant.  It  ought  to  be  regarded  with  distrust  if  for  no  other  reason  than  that  it 
introduces  contradictions  between  the  decisions  and  dicta  of  the  separate  activi- 
ties of  the  intellect. 

§  253.    8.  To   meet,  or   rather,  to  shut   off,  the   difficulties   pro- 
pounded by  Kant,  and  in  part  assented  to  by  Hamilton,  Faith  has    faith  as^con- 

bcen  proposed  as  the   source  of  certain  original  conceptions  and    traste(l     witl» 

knowledge, 
primary  beliefs.     Sometimes  Feeling,  or  some  act  more  akin  to  the 

19* 


442  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §258. 

emotive  than  to  the  intellectual  powers,  has  been  urged  as  the  originator  and 
voucher  of  the  primary  beliefs,  and  indirectly  of  the  knowledge  which  is  built 
upon  them.  This  faith  or  feeling  has  most  usually  had  for  its  object  or  objects, 
the  Absolute)  the  Infinite,  or  the  Unconditioned,  rather  than  the  ultimate  concep- 
tions under  which  finite  existences  are  thought  by  the  mind  and  the  primary  re- 
lations by  means  of  which  these  existences  are  classified  and  connected.  God,  the 
Soul,  Time,  Space,  Immortality — have  been  usually  the  objects  which  it  is  asserted 
are  received  by  this  original  assent  of  Faith  or  Feeling.  Sometimes  the  moral 
relations  have  been  conceived  as  the  direct  object  of  the  soul's  apprehension, 
together  with  God  and  the  soul.  The  tendency  to  cut  the  knot  which  an  intellec- 
tual analysis  has  failed  to  untie,  is  most  conspicuous  as  perpetually  reappearing 
in  the  entire  history  of  modern  philosophy.  The  need  of  an  ultimate  and  deci- 
sive authority  for  our  confidence  in  the  actings  of  the  soul,  has  often  prompted 
to  a  coup  de  main,  by  which  some  usurping  power,  under  the  fairest  names,  has 
seated  itself  in  the  place  of  rule,  and  the  usurpation  has  been  acquiesced  in,  by 
reason  of  the  temporary  peace  and  order  which  has  followed  in  the  intellectual 
convictions  and  the  received  systems  of  science,  morality  and  theology. 

Descartes,  having  vainly  sought  for  some  criterion  of  truth  which  should  assure 
him  that  his  senses  did  not  deceive  him,  and  that  his  judgment  in  regard  to  his 
spiritual  operations  might  be  trusted,  found  repose  in  the  veracity  and  benevo- 
lence of  the  Great  Creator,  of  whose  existence  he  was  assured  by  the  innate  idea 
which  attests  both  his  existence  and  his  perfections.  This  being  given,  the 
cognitions  and  inferences  of  the  intellectual  faculty  may  be  trusted,  when  they 
are  properly  tested  by  the  criteria  or  norms  which  the  Creator  himself  has  pro- 
vided. 

Kant,  after  despairing  to  find  in  the  speculative  Reason  any  warrant  for  trusting 
those  necessary  cognitions  which  are  universal  to  all  men,  and  assumed  ft  priori  as 
the  conditions  of  all  experience  and  all  science,  finds  in  the  categorical  imperative 
of  the  Practical  Reason  a  voucher  for  the  law  of  Duty.  Unconditional  faith  in 
Duty  was  the  corner-stone  of  his  system,  the  only  sure  foundation  which  he  could 
find  among  the  ruins  into  which  he  had  disintegrated  the  structures  of  the  merely 
speculative  Intellect,  and  upon  which  he  could  rebuild  the  same  and  make  them 
compact  and  safe.  Faith  in  Duty  requires  faith  in  God  to  defend  and  reward 
Duty.  Hence  the  same  Practical  Reason  which  commands  us  categorically  (i.  e,} 
unconditionally,  and  without  asking  or  finding  reasons  or  grounds)  to  believe  in 
Duty,  commands  us  to  believe  there  is  a  true  and  perfect  God.  But  such  a  God 
will  not  deceive  his  creatures.  If  we  trust  in  Him  we  may  confide  in  the  specula- 
tive testimony  of  the  Reason  which  he  has  constructed  and  created,  concerning 
those  conceptions  which  it  originates  and  requires ;  and  may  assign  them  the 
place  which  they  take  and  hold  in  our  knowledge,  not  as  being  merely  a  priori 
assumptions  under  which  we  are  obliged  to  think,  but  as  being  fundamental  truths 
which  we  must  accept  as  real.  By  the  Practical  Reason  we  allow  these  forms  of 
thought  by  which  we  must  regulate  our  thinking,  to  become  the  representatives 
of  those  forms  of  being  which  control  the  world  of  reality. 

Jacobi  felt  the  difficulties  in  which  Kant  involved  himself  and  the  minds  of  hii 
generation,  but  was  not  content  with  the  solution  which  he  furnished.  He  adopted 
another,  similar  in  principle,  indeed,  but  slightly  varied  in  its  applications.  To 
the  power  of  apprehending  that  which  is  primary  and  unconditionally  true,  he 
gave  the  names,  at  first  of  Faith,  afterwards  of  Feeling  and  the  Revelation  of  the 


§  258.  THEORIES  OF  INTUITIVE  KNOWLEDGE.  443 

Divine,  and  last  of  all,  of  Reason  Proper.  The  objects  which  this  power  appre- 
hends are  not  moral  and  religious  objects  and  relations  exclusively;  but  the  objects 
of  sense  and  consciousness  with  the  relations  which  they  involve,  as  truly  as  God, 
the  Soul,  and  Immortality.  These  are  all  received  by  the  direct  faith  of  the  soul, 
and  this  faith  and  the  truth  of  what  it  receives  is  the  precondition  of  all  analysis, 
inference  and  deduction :  In  all  these  processes  we  simply  analyze  and  explicate 
what  is  given  to  faith  impliedly  and  as  a  whole.  Jacobi  simply  asserted  these 
principles  to  be  the  foundation  truths  of  all  knowledge.  He  did  not  show  how  they 
could  be  true  or  why  we  believe  them.  Indeed,  he  despaired  of  any  such  analysis. 
He  did  not  ieel  adequate  to  illustrate  them  in  the  detail ;  he  simply  rested  in  their 
truth. 

Schleierm acker  recognized  feeling — the  feeling  of  dependence — as  the  ground 
and  medium  of  all  the  knowledge  of  the  Absolute  that  we  can  attain.  But  we 
can  neither  conceive  of  God  nor  define  our  concepts  of  him.  All  efforts  in  this  di- 
rection, a?  well  as  their  results,  are  entirely  inadequate  and  misleading.  So  far  he 
is  at  one  with  Jacobi.  With  him  he  makes  feeling  or  faith  the  ground  of  our  appre- 
hensions of  the  Infinite  and  Divine.  In  respect  to  our  knowledge  of  and  faith  in 
the  conceptions  that  are  fundamental  to  finite  knowledge — he  would  be  foremost 
to  assert  that  these  are  a  priori  conditions  and  assumptions  of  the  intellect,  and 
that  nature  herself  is  constructed  in  correspondence  with  these  forms  of  human 
thought :  we  have  therefore  the  amplest  ground  for  trusting  the  processes  that 
are  essential  to  our  higher  knowledge  and  the  results  to  which  they  conduct  us. 
The  relations  of  finite  existence,  including  those  of  apace  and  time,  of  substance 
and  attribute,  of  cause  and  effect,  were  considered  by  Schleiermacher  forms  of  exis- 
tence, or  real  forms  in  contradistinction  to  the  subjective  forms  of  Kant  and  Fichte 
and  the  notion  forms  of  Hegel.  These  are  apprehended  by  the  intellect  directly, 
or,  in  the  phraseology  of  his  system,  by  the  intellectual  function,  to  the  opera- 
tions of  which,  in  connection  with  the  organic  function,  all  the  forms  of  finite 
knowledge  are  to  be  referred. 

Some  of  the  more  recent  German  philosophers,  as  Chalybseun,  Rciff,  and  pre- 
eminently Lotze,  rest  their  confidence  in  the  fundamental  assumptions  of  the 
human  intellect,  upon  ethical  grounds.  The  questions  propounded  by  Kant,  viz.: 
"  Suppose  after  all  that  the  constitution  of  our  nature  should  itself  not  be  trust- 
worthy when  it  causes  and  impels  us  to  think  according  to  these  original  forms 
and  fundamental  assumptions  ?  Suppose  that  the  relations  or  forms  of  things, 
which  seem  to  correspond  to  the  relations  or  forms  by  which  we  think  should 
prove  to  be  unreal  ?"  they  answer  thus  :  "  We  must  believe  that  nature  is  benev- 
olent in  her  indications  and  therefore  true.  We  assume  that  goodness  and  vera- 
city regulate  both  the  objective  relations  of  the  universe  whf.jh  we  study  and  the 
subjective  constitution  of  the  intellect  which  interprets  it.  For  these  reasons  we 
rely  upon  the  categories  of  both  thought  and  being,  and  learn  to  think  in  accor- 
dance with  them,  trusting  the  results  which  we  gain. 

As  Hamilton  (as  we  have  seen):  in  his  views  of  the  extent  and  limits  of  our 
knowledge,  followed  Kant  and  Schleiermacher,  so  he  borrowed  from  both  the 
required  solution.  While  he  asserts  that  we  cannot  think  the  infinite  and  uncondi- 
tioned, because  to  think  is  to  limit  and  to  condition,  he  concedes  that  we  know  the 
same.  When  he  is  asked  how  ?  he  replies,  by  faith:  we  must  believe  in  the  Infinite. 
The  extremes  of  our  knowledge,  between  which  we  form  our  concepts — and  out  of 
the  relations  of  which  we  form  our  concepts — we  must  believe  exist  and  are  related 


444  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  260. 

to  one  another.  The  fact  of  their  necessary  existence  we  receive  by  a  direct  insight, 
which  he  calls  both  faith  and  knowledge.  He  borrows  from  Kant  conceptions 
that  are  appropriate  to  the  Practical  Reason — so  far  at  least  as  ethical  distinc- 
tions, moral  liberty  and  a  personal  God  are  concerned.  From  Jacobi  he  adopts 
the  term  faith.  With  the  doctrine  of  Schleiermacher  the  details  of  his  theory 
of  the  Unconditioned  are  closely  allied.  Cf.  Hamilton  (Met.,  Lee.  38 ;  also 
Appendix,  Letter  to  Calderwood). 

That  which  gives  plausibility  to  the  doctrine  that  Faith  or  Feeling  is  the  ulti- 
mate ground  of  this  kind  of  knowledge  is  that  it  is  not  received  by  any  act  of 
conscious  assent  to  propositions,  of  which  the  elementary  concepts  are  first  dis- 
tinctly apprehended  apart  and  then  united,  but  the  mind  first  believes  or  knows 
before  it  reflectively  discriminates  its  knowledges  into  their  elements.  Hence  the 
act  is  called  faith  in  opposition  to  and  in  distinction  from  judgment,  the  last  being 
supposed  to  involve  analysis  as  well  as  combination.  Ethical  and  religious  ob- 
jects are  those  which  most  frequently  bring  it  into  exercise,  and  these  invariably 
excite  more  or  less  feeling.  Hence  the  special  source  of  these  convictions  is  con- 
ceived as  something  not  intellectual,  and  is  simply  called  feeling  .at  one  time,  and 
faith  at  another.  The  oversight  lies  in  making  these  terms  to  imply  that  the  act 
is  not  intellectual.  It  must  be  preeminently  an  intellectual  act  and  power,  for  it 
conditions  all  the  special  acts  and  cognitions  of  which  the  intellect  is  capable. 

§259.  9.  The  immediate  successor  of  Kant  was  J.  G.  Fichte, 
J.  G.  Fichte.  whose  system  was  proposed  as  a  modification  and  improvement  of 
that  which  was  taught  in  the  Critique  of  the  Pure  Reason.  Fichte 
derived  all  knowledge, — the  materials  as  well  as  the  forms,  the  a  posteriori  and  the 
a  priori, — from  the  activity  of  the  Ego.  Every  thing  which  the  mind  knows,  being 
as  well  as  relations,  so  far  as  it  is  known,  is  the  work  of  the  Ego,  and  is  evolved 
from  its  own  creative  activity. 

So  far  as  the  categories  of  thought  are  concerned-,  Fichte  endeavors  to  show  that 
each  one  of  them  is  necessarily  involved  in  the  several  concrete  creative  acts  by 
which  the  Ego  constructs  for  itself  the  known  universe.  Its  first  act  is  to  affirm 
its  own  being.  But  in  this  it  must  apply  and  evolve  the  law  or  relation  of  iden- 
tity, A=A.  Its  second  act  is  to  affirm  the  non-Ego.  But  this  in  like  manner  in- 
volves the  law  of  contradiction,  (A)  is  not  (non-A).  The  third  is  to  recognize  the 
indivisible  Ego  as  opposed  to  a  divisible  non-Ego.  This  involves  the  reciprocal 
activity  of  each  on  the  other,  and  this  implies  the  relation  of  Causative  efficiency. 
The  other  relations  are  all  evolved  in  a  similar  way  by  the  productive  activity  of 
the  Ego,  together  with  the  non-Ego  which  this  activity  calls  forth.  Time  and 
space,  substance  and  attribute,  reality,  possibility  and  necessity,  etc.,  etc  ,  are  all  ac- 
counted for  by  the  creative  activity  of  the  Ego,  as  it  proceeds  from  the  simpler  to 
the  more  complex  processes  and  products  of  human  knowledge. 

§  260.    10.  Schelling   followed   Fichte— by  the   effort  to  mediate 

Schelling's  between  him  and  Kant — so  far  as  to  provide  for  a  common  origi- 
yievv  ot  the  cat-  natjon  an(j  relationship  for  the  subjective  and  objective.  His  in- 
tellectual intuition  recognizes  at  first  the  indifference  of  both,  from 
which  it  develops  as  correspondent  to  one  another  the  forms  of  thought  and  the 
forms  of  being.  The  authority  for  the  categories  in  this  double  application  must 
be  in  that  intuition  which  affirms  them  to  be  common  to  the  two.  In  his  later 
philosophy,  which  was  modified  to  avoid  and  displace  the  logical  idealism  of 
Hegel,  Schelling  assumes  the  reality  of  concrete  and  actual  being,  and  teaches  the 


§  262.  THEORIES  OF  INTUITIVE  KNOWLEDGE.  445 

mind's  competence  to  originate  and  affirm  necessary  and  original  relations  only  in 
their  application  to,  and  by  occasion  of  supposed  concrete  knowledge.  For  this 
reason  he  asserted  for  these  a  priori  relations  and  for  philosophy  itself,  what  he 
called  only  a  negative  value. 

$  261.   11.  Hegel  substituted  thought  for  Schelling's  intellectual 
intuition,  i.  e.,   that  mental  activity  which  produces  and  is  con-    Hegel's  theory 
cerned  with  the  concept  or  logical  notion  j  but  he  made  a  fatal  mis-       thought.1'1" 
take  in  conceiving  that  thought,  viz.,  abstract  thinking,  could  be  ex- 
plained independently  of  concrete  knowledge  and  actual  being,  and  that  the  fo.- 
mer  could  explain  the  latter  by  the  relations  of  pure  or  abstract  thought.    He  was 
therefore  compelled,  by  logical   consistency,  to  endeavor  to  evolve  and  explain 
every  form  of  actual  being  by  the  development  or  evolution  of  the  notion  from 
within  itself. 

The  categories  or  the  original  and  necessary  relations  of  knowledge,  according 
to  Hegel,  are  all  the  relations  which  are  necessarily  evolved  in  the  process  by  which 
simple,  i.  e,,  abstract  being  is  developed  into  the  several  forms  of  thought  and  ex- 
istence, and  through  them  all,  till  the  absolute  is  attained,  i.  e.,  till  the  process  is 
complete  and  with  it  the  cycle  of  the  original  relations  or  categories  which  are  re- 
quired for  its  evolution. 

§  262.  12.  According  to  Herbart,  some  of  the  categories  are  the 
products  of  the  action  and  reaction  of  ideas.  They  are  not  the  ory. 
necessary  laws  or  forms  of  the  mind's  knowledge,  but  are  the 
growth  and  result  of  its  psychological  functions  as  determined  by  the  laws  which 
govern  the  formation  and  mutual  action  of  the  results  of  the  impressions  made 
upon  the  soul  by  matter,  and  the  soul's  reaction  against  them.  These  results  are 
perceptions  or  representations.  Concepts,  or  general  notions,  arise  only  when  a 
number  of  similar  objects  have  been  perceived.  These  different  elements  in  their 
struggle  for  reappearance  crowd  one  another  out  of  view,  and  only  those  are  ap- 
parent which,  being  alike,  reinforce  one  another,  and  so  survive  the  struggle.  The 
conceptions  of  Space  and  Time  are  series  of  reproduced  objects,  the  parts  of 
which  are  more  or  less  indistinct,  as  they  stand  related  to  the  here  and  the  now.  A 
thing  or  being  and  its  attributes,  is  either  an  original  whole  analyzed  into  its  con- 
stituent parts,  giving  the  attribute  of  quality,  or  a  whole  with  its  attendant  series 
of  time  and  space  accompaniments  giving  the  attribute  of  quantity.  The  suc- 
cessful connection  of  these  attendant  parts  or  accessory  series  is  affirmation — the 
unsuccessful  is  negation :  both  these  involve  the  two  corresponding  forms  of 
judgment  or  the  apprehension  of  relations. 

The  relations  of  substance  to  attributes  and  of  cause  and  effect  are  inconsistent 
with  the  logical  laws  of  identity  and  contradiction,  which  are  assumed  by  Herbart 
to  be  original  and  independent  laws  of  thought.  To  remove  these  inconsistencies 
is  the  object  of  his  metaphysical  system.  This  he  essays  to  do  by  "  the  method  of 
relations."  It  would  seem  that  the  logical  laws  are  the  only  categories,  properly 
considered,  which  Herbart  accepts,  for  the  reason  that  these  logical  criteria  are 
applied  by  him  as  the  fixed  rules  and  original  measures  by  which  every  other  re- 
lation is  tried  and  tested. 


446  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §263. 

CHAPTER  IIL 

FORMAL   RELATIONS   OR   CATEGORIES. 

§  263.  Following  the  classification  of  categories 
or  intuitions  which  we  have  adopted  and  explained 
(§  250),  we  begin  with  those  which  we  have  defined 
as  formal.  These  are  also  called  Logical,  for  the  reason  that  Logic 
has  to  do  with  the  concept  as  such,  i.  e.,  the  pure  concept  and  its 
necessary  relations.  The  concept  as  such  consists  of  those  elements, 
and  those  only,  that  must  be  conceived  as  present  in  every  object 
when  thought  of.  That  is,  it  must  embrace  those  elements  only 
which  are  common  to  every  such  object,  whether  it  is  a  real 
or  an  imagined  being.  These  elements,  while  they  belong  to 
things  as  well  as  to  concepts,  are  yet  essential  to  the  concept 
and  the  other  entities  of  pure  logic,  and  hence  are  referred  pre- 
eminently to  the  power  of  thought. 

We  begin  with  being.  This  will  be  readily  acknowledged  to 
be  the  most  extensively  applied  of  all  the  concepts,  and  there- 
fore fundamental.  Everything  which  we  know,  we  know  to 
exist.  To  know  is  impossible  and  inconceivable,  if  it  does  not 
involve  the  certainty  that  that  which  is  known,  exists  or  is. 
Being  is  the  correlate  of  knowledge. 

Hence,  this  concept  is  apparently  fundamental  to 
SnoamenS80  a^l  others.  It  belongs  to  every  object  with  which  the 
mind  has  to  do  in  knowledge,  and  it  belongs  to  each 
with  equal  propriety — to  Him  \vhom  we  call,  in  the  poverty  of 
our  language,  the  Being  of  beings,  and  to  the  most  transient  and 
trivial  creation  of  the  humblest  of  His  creatures ;  to  the  universe 
in  the  most  comprehensive  meaning  of  the  term,  and  to  the  ma- 
thematical point,  which  is  the  product  of  the  thought  of  a 
moment. 

We  sometimes  dignify  the  being  which  is  independent  and  per- 
manent with  the  assertion  that  this  only  or  truly  has  being,  or 
only  and  truly  is ;  but  this  is  by  a  metaphor  only,  and  does  not 
in  the  least  affect  the  proper  import  of  the  term  or  of  the  con- 
cept for  which  it  stands.  The  positive  existence  of  the  object,  but 
neither  its  dignity  nor  its  duration,  is  expressed  by  the  word. 


§  265.  FORMAL  RELATIONS  OR  CATEGORIES.  447 

§  264.  Being  is  the  most  abstract  of  all  possible 

_      .  f .   ,  The  most  .ib- 

concepts.     Alter  every  property  or  relation  which  we  stractofaiitue 

,  n  ,  .  .  ,        »  ...  categories. 

know  01  an  object  is  set  aside  from  any  existing 
thought  or  thing,  there  remains  the  affirmation ;  this  is.  This  re- 
sulting concept  cannot  be  thought  away.  For  this  reason  it  is 
called  logically  the  first  or  the  most  elementary  of  all  concepts. 
As  it  is  the  last  which  we  reach  by  analysis,  it  is  the  first  with 
which  our  synthesis  begins. 

Psychologically,  the  knowledge  of  being  in  the  concrete,  pre- 
cedes that  of  being  in  the  abstract.  We  know  individual  beings 
before  we  know  being  as  a  concept. 

Logically,  or,  more  properly,  metaphysically,  the  concept  of  being 
is  the  first  and  most  fundamental  of  all  the  concepts,  because  it 
is  the  most  extensively  applied,  and  is  the  highest  of  our  gen- 
eralizations (§  249).  But  it  cannot  be  understood  as  a  concept, 
except  by  means  of  individual  objects.  To  begin  with  the  con- 
cept in  the  abstract,  excluding  that  knowledge  which  interprets 
and  makes  it  clear,  is  literally  to  begin  with  nothing.  To  at- 
tempt to  develop  from  it  actual  being,  is  to  give  an  example  by 
failure,  of  the  truth,  ex  nihilo  nihil  Jit !  Hegel  begins  the  de- 
velopment and  explanation  of  our  real  knowledge  with  the  con- 
cept of  being  in  the  abstract,  and  seeks  to  construct  and  develop 
from  this  the  conception  and  knowledge  of  real  existence,  and 
the  relations  which  it  involves.  In  doing  this,  he  is  obliged  to 
interpret  his  meaning  by  a  tacit  assumption  of  that  which  he 
formally  ignores  and  denies — i.  e.,  to  draw  upon  direct  and  pre- 
sented knowledge  for  the  interpretation  of  the  conceptions  and 
relations  which  he  professes  to  develop  and  account  for.  The  at- 
tempt is  vain  ;  the  method  is  false ;  the  solution  is  impossible. 

The  knowledge  of  being  is  expressed  by  judgments  or  proposi- 
tions, the  subjects  of  which  are  known  individually.  We  tacitly 
assert  or  think  of  every  such  object;  it, or  this,  is  or  exists.  From 
these  we  generalize  the  concept — being.  Being  or  existence  is 
not,  however,  an  attribute  or  a  relation,  though  it  is  conceived  or 
treated  as  such  when  it  is  thus  generalized.  It  is  obvious  that 
being  must  be  assumed  in  order  that  an  attribute  or  relation  may 
be  known. 

§-265.  Being  cannot  be  defined — i.  e.,  resolved  into     T*  ipdffinabii 

and    mdeterml- 

any  more  elementary  constituents.      It   can  be  de-  nate- 


448  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  265. 

scribed,  however,  by  the  conditions  or  circumstances  under 
which  it  is  present  to  the  mind  :  When  we  ask.  What  is  being  ? 
we  cannot  answer  in  the  way  of  definition.  But  inasmuch  as 
whenever  we  know  we  apprehend  being,  by  referring  to  the  act 
of  knowing  we  understand,  though  we  cannot  define,  the  import 
of  the  concept;  i.  e.,  we  explain  the  concept,  being,  by  the  act 
which  involves  and  supposes  it. 

It  was  said  (§  196)  that  all  concepts  are  founded  on  attributes 
or  relations  generalized,  and  that  the  only  difference  between 
nouns  and  adjectives  arises  from  their  use  and  not- their  meaning; 
the  same  content  being  present  in  every  case — a  content  of 
attributes  only.  How,  then,  it  might  be  urged,  is  it  possible 
that  there  should  be  any  concept  of  being  at  all,  if  being  is  not 
only  not  an  attribute,  but  is  the  direct  contrast  of  an  attribute 
and  must  be  supposed  to  make  an  attribute  conceivable  or  pos- 
sible ?  This  inquiry  has  in  part  been  answered.  In  order  to  be 
turned  into  a  concept,  being  is  treated  as  an  attribute ;  it  is 
predicated  of  the  individuals  to  which  it  belongs  and  thus  is 
made  to  suggest  itself  as  essential  to  any  relation.  It  is  worthy  of 
notice  also  that  some  fixed  permanent  attribute  as  of  standing, 
etc.,  is  usually  selected  to  image  or  represent  beingness. 

Simple  being  is  a  concept  wholly  indeterminate.  It  stands  for 
itself  and  for  nothing  besides.  It  is  supposed  in  every  other.  It 
must  be  assumed  to  determine  every  other.  We  must  begin  w\th 
being,  before  we  can  add  a  single  characteristic  to  make  it  defi- 
nite. 

This  is  what  Hegel  had  in  mind  in  his  assertion :  Being  or 
entity  is  equal  to  nothing,  i.  e.,  it  is  equivalent  to  a  notion  without 
content.  As  an  abstract  conception,  it  has  no  relations  to  any 
other  concept,  and  consequently  no  attributes ;  it  is  wholly  un- 
defined. "  Being,  the  undetermined,  immediate  object  of  know- 
ledge, is  in  fact  nothing,  no  more  nor  less.  Nothing  is  [has]  ths 
same  determination,  or  rather,  absence  of  determination  withs 
and,  for  that  reason,  is  equivalent  to,  simple  entity.  Hegel,  (Logic, 
vol.  i.,p.  22',Encyc.,  p.  406.) 

.  But  though  being,  as  a  concept,  and  in  its  relation  to  other 
concepts,  is  indeterminate,  it  is  not  without  signification.  Tha 
concept  is  taken  from  and  affirmed  of  and  interpreted  by,  incjivi' 
dual  beings  which  we  actually  know  by  direct  knowledge. 


§  266.  FORMAL  RELATIONS  OR  CATEGORIES.  4  49 

§  266.  From  beinq  we  pass  to  relation ;  both  ex- 

,      .         ,  .       ,     .          .          T        i   •        i  n        Relationship. 

istence  and  relationship   being  involved  in  the  act  of    Diversity  and 
knowing.     By  relations,  individual  objects,  as  well  as 
concepts,  are  distinguished  and  connected.     But  relationship  in- 
volves diversity  in  the  concept  produced,  and  negation  as  the 
judgment  by  which  diversity  is  affirmed. 

Two  entities — i.  e.,  objects  apprehended — are  essential  to  the 
apprehension  of  a  connecting  relation.  But  if  the  two  are  known 
they  must  be  distinguished — i.  e.,  known  as  different  from  each 
other,  in  order  that  they  may  be  again  connected. 

It  follows  that  the  relation  which  is  the  most  extensive  of  all 
others,  is  the  relation  of  diversity  or  difference. 

In  every  act  and  object  of  knowledge  two  relations  are  sup- 
posed, those  of  diversity  and  of  similarity.  If  there  is  more  than 
one  concrete  Being,  one  is  diverse  from  the  other.  If  both  are 
alike  Beings,  i.  e.,  are  comprehended  under  the  concept  Being, 
they  must  be  alike  at  least  in  that  they  are  both  knowable.  In 
brief,  diversity  and  similarity — i.  e.,  logical  or  formal  sameness — 
are  everywhere  present.  This  truth  is  asserted  in  the  proposi- 
tion, that  every  act  of  knowledge  is  at  once  an  act  of  analysis 
and  of  synthesis.  In  every  single  act  of  knowledge  we  separate 
— i.  e.,  distinguish — in  order  that  we  may  combine.  We  can 
only  unite  so  far  as  we  separate,  and  we  unite  by  similarity. 

The  relation  of  difference  or  diversity  is  expressed  by  the 
proposition,  this  being  is  not  that.  A  is  not  B,  or  B  is  not  A ; 
the  color  is  not  the  taste,  the  taste  is  not  the  color ;  the  pictured 
moon  is  not  the  mind;  the  mind  is  not  the  moon  which  it  pictures. 
I  am  not  the  object  seen  or  tasted,  etc.,  etc. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  these  propositions  are  all  individual  propositions,  and 
that  none  of  them  are  or  can  be  general.  The  individual  goes  before  the  general 
in  the?e  propositions  of  relations,  as  in  all  others. 

From  the  recognition  and  affirmation  of  relations  in  general  are 

evolved  what  are   called  relative  concents  or  notions.     From   the       Relative  no- 
,  .  ,  ,/        ,   ,.         „   ,.         ..  tions.  Negative 

negative  proposition  which  expresses  the  relation  of  diversity  are    notions. 

produced  what  are  termed  negative  concepts. 

No  sooner  is  A  distinguished  from  B,  than  we  can  apply  to  it  the  negative 
notion  of  not-B.  In  the  same  way  reciprocally,  the  notion  not- A  can  be  affirmed 
of  B.  These  two  notions  are  purely  relative.  The  whole  content  or  import 
which  they  express,  is  limited  to  the  single  relation  in  which  they  stand  to  the 
other  object,  which  other  object,  A  or  B,  as  the  oase  may  be,  is  supposed  to  b$ 
positively  known. 


450  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  267. 

In  like  manner,  other  relative  notions  may  be  formed,  as  if  we  take  a  substance 
and  it  puts  us  to  sleep,  we  conceive  the  unknown  something  which  produces  this 
sleep-making ;  that  is,  we  need  know  it  no  further  than  by  its  relation  to  this 
effect.  The  only  notion  which  we  have  of  it  may  be  purely  relative  to  the 
known  effect. 

The  negative  relation,  as  indeed  any  relative  notion,  is  at  first  apprehended  as 
individual,  and  then  generalized.  No  sooner  is  A  pronounced  to  be  not  B,  than 
we  proceed  to  apply  this  to  C,  D,  E,  F,  etc.,  as  well  as  to  A — indeed,  to  all  objects 
except  B  itself.  We  need  know  nothing  more  of  them  than  that  they  are,  to  be 
justified  in  classing  them  alias  not-Bs,  or  in  affirming  of  them  the  negative 
concept  thus  generalized.  This  is  the  ground  of  the  division  of  all  real  and 
conceivable  things  by  dichotomy,  as  it  is  called. 

It  will  be  observed,  however,  that  negation  expresses  a  relation  between  two 
actual  beings,  or  two  beings  treated  or  conceived  as  real.  It  supposes  two  positives 
known  or  conceived,  each  of  which  is  thought  as  related  negatively  to  the  other. 

The  concept  nothing — nonentity — is  a  purely  relative  concept.  All  being  or 
entities,  whether  real  or  imaginary,  are  grouped  under  the  most  general  of  all 
concepts.  To  this  is  attached  the  relation  of  negation.  What  is  expressed,  is 
the  proposition  that  the  concept  is  exhaustive,  and  that  it  is  impossible  to  con- 
ceive or  believe  in  any  thing  beside.  By  a  fiction  of  speech  and  of  thought  this 
proposition  is  contracted  into  the  concept  nothing — nonentity — as  though  there 
were  a  really  existing  object  negatively  related  to  being.  To  form  it  we  group 
all  known  or  knowable  objects  under  the  general  concept  of  being  and  attaching 
to  this  the  negative  particle,  make  no<-being=rao  ihmg=nothing. 

When  Hegel  asserts  that  the  concept  being  orenity  equals  nothing  in  its  import, 
he  has  in  mind  that  it  is  a  concept  which  cannot  be  analyzed  into  any  constituent 
concept  or  thought  element:  it  is  therefore  unrelated  to  any  other;  it  is  .undeter- 
mined :  it  has  no  notional  or  formal  content.  So  far  from  being  true  that  this 
concept  has  no  import,  no  concept  has  an  import  so  extensive.  Its  import  is 
reached  in  the  various  forms  of  direct  knowledge,  which  furnish  the  material  and 
meaning  to  every  concept,  and  a  reference  to  which  is  supposed  every  time  the 
concept  being  is  used. 

Hegel  reasons  that,  because  the  concept  being  is  the  summum  genus  among  con- 
cepts, it  is  the  originator  of  all  other  concepts  :  not  only  so,  but  by  the  law  of 
self-evolution,  it  is  the  originator  of  things  or  actual  beings.  The  failure  of  the 
attempt,  and  the  absurdity  of  the  theory  on  which  it  rests  is  manifest  when  the 
effort  is  made  to  cross  over  from  the  notion  world  to  the  real  world ;  when  the 
effort  is  essayed  to  evolve  time  and  space,  matter  and  spirit  from  concepts  only. 
The  effort  seems  to  be  successful  only  because  the  real  world  with  its  relations  is 
ever  ready  at  hand  behind  the  concept  world  which  symbolizes  it,  to  furnish  the 
signification  which  is  required.  Real  being,  and  real  relations  are  very  easily 
confounded  with  the  generalized  concepts  of  the  same.  The  two  are  easily  inter- 
changed, and  it  is  by  a  kind  of  intellectual  juggling  or  slight-of-hand  that  any 
success  appears  to  be  attained,  or  any  conviction  is  produced. 

Substance  and        §  267.  Diversity  or  negation  is  applied  to  a  being 

maiiyute  con-  ^  distinguished  from  its  relations,  to  one  relation  as 

distinguished  from  another  relation,  and  also  to  one 


§  267.  FORMAL  RELATIONS  OR  CATEGORIES.  451 

being  as  distinguished  from  another  by  means  of  its  relations. 
We  distinguish  or  separate  objects  from  one  another  whether 
material  or  spiritual:  first, in  real  knowledge,by  intuition  or  direct 
inspection;  next,m  thought  knowledge,  by  employing  relations  for 
this  purpose,  and  especially  those  similar  relations  by  which 
beings  are  grouped  under  concepts. 

This  introduces  us  to  the  category  of  substance  and  attribute,  so 
far  as  it  is  merely  formal.  Whenever  a  being  is  thought  of,  i.  e., 
is  distinguished  from  another  being  by  the  number  and  the 
extent  of  its  relations,  then  we  have  the  relation  of  substance  and 
attribute  in  its  pure  or  abstract  form.  A  substance  formally  con- 
ceived is  a  being  distinguished  by  certain  relations.  An  attribute 
is  one  of  the  relations  which  thus  distinguishes  a  being. 

Every  concept  whenever^  it  is  complex,  as  having  a  de- 
finite content,  implies  the  relation  of  a  whole  constituted  of  and 
separable  into  parts.  This  implies  the  relation  of  more  or  less. 
The  extent  of  a  concept, as  applicable  to  more  or  fewer  objects, 
and  therefore  as  higher  or  lower,  implies  the  same  relation.  The 
relations  of  wholes  and  parts  and  of  greater  or  less  are  properly 
formal  relations,  as  involved  in  the  very  nature  of  the  concept. 
They  are  relations  of  formal  or  logical  quantity,  which  is  dis- 
tinguished from  mathematical  quantity  by  characteristics  subse- 
quently explained. 

The  relation  of  diversity  with  its  several  applications  suggests 
the  relation  of  identity.  In  affirming  that  A  is  not  B,  or  is 
diverse  from  B,  we  imply  that  A  is  identical  with  itself. 
That  the  mind  comes  to  the  distinct  recognition  of  this  relation 
at  an  early  period  of  its  development,  and  makes  frequent  appli- 
cation of  it  afterwards,  is  too  obvious  to  need  confirmation. 
That  the  relation  is  original,  and  is  intuitively  discerned,  is 
equally  clear. 

If  a  concept  is  known  as  identical,  it  is  of  course  implied  that 
the  individual  beings  to  which  it  belongs  have  similar  relations  in 
common.  These  individuals  cannot  be  distinguished,  except  by 
means  of  the  relations  of  time  and  space,  which  are  conceivable 
as  possible  of  either,  but  not  of  both  together.  One  concept  is 
distinguished  from  another  by  the  relations  which  make  the  con- 
tent and  determine  the  extent  of  the  one  and  the  other. 

Many  hold,  that  the  first  object  to  which  identity  is  applied 


452 


THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  268. 


is  the  soul  itself,  as  distinguished  from  the  diverse  states  of 
which  it  is  conscious.  As  the  Ego  distinguishes  itself  from  its 
changing  states,  it  knows  that  the  states  are  varying,  but  the  Ego 
is  the  same.  In  doing  so,  it  must  compare  itself  at  one  time  with 
itself  at  another,  or  itself  in  one  state  with  itself  in  another. 

Identity  again  may  be  affirmed  of  a  material  object,  as  of  a 
house,  a  ship,  a  tree,  or  a  horse.  In  such  cases  the  objects  are 
perceived  at  different  times  at  least,  and  are  often  changed  in 
form,  appearance  and  properties.  The  test  or  standard  of 
identity  may  be  real  and  natural,  or  it  may  be  conventional  and 
factitious.  But  the  relation  itself  is  not  thereby  altered. 

Identity  may  also  be  applied  to  a  purely  mental  product. 
Often  it  is  interchanged  with  similarity,  when  it  is  applied  to  a 
concept,  e.  g.,  I  have  a  similar  image  of  the  same  object  which  I 
previously  imagined  or  perceived.  It  is  not  necessary  that  the 
concept  should  be  formed  by  all  men  from  the  same  individuals, 
but  it  is  meant  that  the  similarity  between  the  individual  objects 
is  so  perfect  that  one  individual  may  be  substituted  for  another 
in  forming  it,  and  that  it  may  be  applied  to  one  as  freely  and  as 
properly  as  to  another.  When  it  is  thus  applied  it  concerns  the 
relations  of  content  and  extent,  and  signifies  that  the  same  defini- 
tions and  divisions  are  applicable  in  every  case. 

§  268.   To  guard  against  using  concepts  in  different 

The  logical  axi-  .  »    •»  *     7  7  7        7  /• 

cms  of  identity,  senses  in  any  of  the  processes  q/  thought,  the  law  oj 
identity,  the  law  of  contradiction  and  the  law  of  excluded 
middle  are  set  forth  as  the  three  fundamental  laws  of  thought,  i.  e., 
of  formal  thought.  These  respect  the  identity  and  diversity  of  con- 
cepts only.  They  are  the  axioms  of  logical  thinking,  but  not  neces- 
sarily the  rules  for  every  form  and  mode  of  knowledge.  They  are 
such  practical  rules  as  have  been  found  necessary  from  the  dangers 
to  which  men  are  exposed  from  the  various  forms  of  expression  in 
which  concepts  and  their  relations  are  phrased. 

The  law  of  identity  is  designed  to  avoid  the  twofold  danger  of 
supposing,  on  the  one  hand,  because  the  diction  is  altered,  that 
the  concepts,  propositions,  and  reasonings  are  changed,  or  on  the 
other,  that,  because  the  phraseology  is  similar,  the  meaning  is  the 
same. 

Complex  concepts  only  can  be  tried  and  tested  by  this  law; 
and  these  can  be  tested  both  in  their  content  and  extent.  The 


§  268.  FORMAL  RELATIONS  OR  CATEGORIES.  453 

law  applied  to  the  content  asserts  that  a  concept  is,  for  purposes 
of  logic,  the  same  with  the  sum  of  its  constituting  elements : 
A=  (a;  b,  c,  d,  and  e)  ;  i.  e.,  all  these  being  taken  together,  the 
one  is  convertible  with  the  other.  When  applied  to  the  relation 
of  extent,  it  asserts  that  the  concept  as  genus  is  identical  with 
the  total  of  its  contained  species  or  subordinate  parts.  To  make 
the  logical  law  of  identity  the  mere  meaningless  truism, — A  is 
A,  i.  e.,  that  a  concept  in  the  same  form  of  diction  is  identical 
with  itself, — is  inept  and  absurd. 

The  logical  axiom  or  law  of  contradiction :  A  is  not  not- A,  is 
only  a  generalized  application  of  the  intuition  of  difference  to  any 
concept  whatever,  taken  in  both  extent  and  content.  A  thing  or 
a  concept  is  not  another,  it  is  not  any  one  of  the  things  or  con- 
cepts from  which  it  differs,  nor  all  of  them  united.  This  truth, 
expressed  as  a  rule,  icquires  that  the  concept  "should  never  be 
confounded  with  or  substituted  for  either." 

The  law  of  excluded  middle  is,  every  B  is  either  A  or  not-A. 
This  is  another  application  of  the  intuitions  of  difference  and 
identity  when  generalized.  When  A  has  been  distinguished  from 
not-A,  it  is  at  once  discerned  that  these  two  concepts  divide  the 
extent  of  all  conceivable  existences  into  two  classes.  This  truth 
is  then  stated  as  a  principle  ;  which  is  ready  to  be  used  as  a  law 
whenever  it  is  required  to  guard  or  correct  our  thinking. 

Much  evil  has  resulted  from  the  error  of  taking  these  three 
logical  laws  as  the  original  and  the  only  laws  of  our  knowledge. 
It  was  entirely  natural  for  philosophers  who  were  practiced  in  the 
schools  of  formal  logic  to  suppose  that  everything  which  man  be- 
lieves to  be  true  could  be  demonstrated  by  the  methods  and  after 
the  principles  of  the  syllogism.  The  tenacity  with  which  this 
persuasion  has  been  adhered  to  is  most  remarkable  in  the  history 
of  all  systems  and  schools  of  thought.  For  a  long  period  after 
the  revival  of  philosophy  it  seemed  that  man  would  never  cease 
to  attempt  to  give  a  logical  demonstration  for  the  very  axioms 
and  principles  on  which  all  demonstration  must  rest.  Logical 
proof  was  required  for  all  knowledge,  for  the  belief  in  a  material 
world,  for  our  confidence  in  memory,  for  the  distinction  between  the 
facts  of  experience  and  the  illusions  of  the  imagination  ;  in  short, 
for  everything  known  or  believed  by  man, — and  to  logical  proof 
these  three  laws  of  thought  were  assumed  as  the  axioms.  Hence, 


454  THE    HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §269. 

the  attempt  was  persistently  made  to  found  upon  these  laws  the  whole 
structure  of  human  knowledge,  and  to  deduce  or  demonstrate  from 
them,  the  validity  of  this  knowledge  in  all  its  forms  and  appli- 
cations. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

MATHEMATICAL   RELATIONS:    TIME   AND   SPACE. 

WE  proceed  to  consider  the  mathematical  categories ;  or  those 
relations  which  involve  the  belief  in  time  and  space.  These  re- 
lations are  of  the  most  extensive  application.  They  all  must  in  a 
sense  be  recognized  in  every  act  of  consciousness  and  perception. 
By  means  of  these,  material  and  spiritual  objects  are  parted  and 
united,  are  individualized  and  generalized.  They  suggest  the 
space  and  time  which  are  infinite  and  absolute — the  correlates  of 
limited  time  and  limited  space.  In  order  to  relieve  the  treatment 
of  the  subject  as  much  as  possible,  we  will  consider  them  first 
under  their  more  familiar  aspects  and  relations,  and  afterwards 
in  those  which  are  more  recondite  and  difficult.  We  begin  with 

I.  Extension  as  given  in  Sense-Perception  ;  or  the  relations  of 
matter  which  introduce  and  require  the  knowledge  of  Space. 

§  269.  All  matter  is  known  as   extended.      The 
Development  beings  or  objects  of  which  we  become  cognizant  in 
»iatiOT?JfCSI-  the  use  of  the  muscular  and  sensorial  apparatus  are 
extended.     The  percepts  and   things  which  are  pre- 
sented to  the  sensorium  as  eye  and  ear  and  hand,  are  perceived 
as  extended. 

It  is  not  meant  that  this  extension  in  one  or  all  of  its  dimen- 
sions is  known  at  first  as  separable  from  the  matter  to  which  it 
pertains  and  of  which  it  is  affirmed ;  but  as  belonging  to  matter 
and  affirmable  of  it.  All  extended  objects  are  known  as  ex- 
tended, at  least  in  two  dimensions.  We  cannot  conceive  the  eye 
and  the  hand  to  rest  upon  or  to  move  along  any  so-called  object 
without  the  apprehension  of  an  extended  surface.  A  ball  or 
cube  when  followed  by  the  eye  or  grasped  by  the  hand  is  known 
to  return  upon  itself,  and  both  are  sooner  or  later  known  as  ex- 


3IATHEMATICAL  RELATIONS :    TIME  AND  SPACE.  4"j 

tended  in  three  dimensions  or  directions,  i.  e,,  as  high,  broad,  anrf 
This  extension  is  first  known  as  outer,  i.  e.,  as  enclosing 
matter.  But  when  the  child  peeps  into  a  box,  or  surveys  from 
within,  the  walls,  floor  and  ceiling  of  the  apartment  with  which 
it  is  familiar,  it  distinguishes  the  surfaces  which,  are  inner  or 
enclosed  by  matter,  from  those  which  are  outer  and  enclose  matter. 

After  the  process  of  perception  is  complete  by  a  synthesis  of 
percepts  and  their  relations,  the  mind  proceeds  to  analyze  these 
elements,  and  to  think  of  them  separately  from  any  single  sub- 
stance. But  after  disposing  of  all  the  qualities  apprehended  by 
sense-perception,  it  still  finds  a  residuum  in  the  relations  belong- 
ing to  the  inner  and  outer  surfaces  of  matter  as  already 
ibed.  The  hand  experiments  upon  these  surfaces,  and  finds 
them  rough  or  smooth,  etc.  The  eye  discerns  them  as  variously 
colored,  as  light  or  dark,  etc.  But  no  one  of  the  senses  finds  what 
we  call  their  extension.  There  is  no  sense-perception  to  which 
this  is  appropriate,  and  over  against  which  this  may  be  set  as  a 
quality.  M-  >reover,  this  very  property  involves  the  recognition  of 
a  void,  to  which  it  is  also  conceived  to  have  constant  relation. 

What  is  this  void  which  we  call  space?   What  is  that  property 

in  matter  which  requires  the  recognition  of  space  ?     We  may  find 

further  aid  in  answering  these  questions,  if  we  consider  first  the 

attributes  and  relations  which  involve  the  kindred  questions  in 

•ect  to  time. 

II.   Of  Time  as  apprehended  in  consciousness  ;  or,  the  relations 
of  event*  which  introduce  and  involve  the  knowledge  of  Time. 

§  270.   Every  psychical  act  or  state,  whether  appre- 
hended more  <>  inctly  as  a  part  of  the  whole 

3j  and  the  entire  series  viewed  as  an  unbroken  a 
whole,  are  known  as  continuing  or  enduring. 

How  soon,  or  whether  it  is  by  the  gradual  discipline  or  the  in- 
stant application  of  the  powers  that  psychical  phenomena  are 
separated  into  distinct  events,  we  need  not  inquire.  Whei. 
they  are  distinguished,  the  whole  and  the  parts  are  known  as 
continuous  or  enduring.  An  act  that  is  literally  instantaneous, 
a,  psychical  state  beginning  and  occupying  no  time  at  all,  is  abso- 
lutely inconceivable.  What  we  call  instants  are  not  timeless,  but 
the  least  kuowable  or  appreciable  portions  of  time.  As  every  ob- 
ject of  sense-perception — whether  many  as  one,  or  one  of  many 


456  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  270. 

— must  be  known  as  extended,  so  it  is  with  ihe  phenomena  of 
consciousness.  Continuance, or  duration,belongs  to  each  and  to  all. 

But  there  are  two  distinct  classes  of  psychical  objects  given  to 
consciousness ;  first,  the  energy  of  the  ego  by  which  it  manifests 
its  continued,  unbroken,  and  identical  life ;  and  second,  the  special 
activities  which  change  every  instant.  As  the  subject  of  chang- 
ing activities — the  soul  knows  itself  to  be  living  and  acting  contin- 
uously. It  also  knows  itself  as  acting  and  suffering  in  states  that 
change  as  continuously.  Some  of  these  states  may  seem  also  to 
coincide  with  others,  as  one  continuous  or  successively  repeated 
act  of  knowledge  may  run  side  by  side  with  two  or  more  diverse 
states  of  feeling. 

Upon  this  continually  existing  and  proceeding  life  of  the  soul, 
all  its  special  activities  and  states  are  projected,  as  it  were ;  as  one 
portion  of  extended  matter  is  perceived  over  against  the  back- 
ground of  other  matter  more  extended  than  itself.  These  activi- 
ties thus  connected  are  known  to  exist  in  a  series  involving  the 
relations  between  one  another  of  now,  before,  and  after.  These 
relations  are  applied  first  of  all  to  the  individual  activities  of  the 
soul.  But  just  as  we  speak  of  portions  of  matter  as  here,  there  ; 
before,  behind ;  within,  and  without ;  so  we  apply  these  time  rela- 
tions to  the  states  of  the  soul.  As  we  find  one  portion  of  matter 
included  by  or  including  other  portions,  so  we  can  cut  off  a  single 
portion  of  the  continuous  life  of  the  soul  by  voluntary  or  invol- 
untary effort,  and  contemplate  those  states  which  are  included 
within,  or  are  excluded  from  it. 

Time  may  be  conceived  as  void  of  psychical  phenomena ;  as 
space  is  void  of  material  beings  and  acts.  Not  that  time  can  be 
absolutely  void,  but  portions  of  the  soul's  existence  can  bo 
considered  as  such,  in  the  sense  explained.  But  it  is  not  at  all 
essential  to  the  knowledge  of  events  in  the  relations  of  time, 
that  time  should  be  distinctly  conceived  as  void.  We  can  know 
events  as  past,  present,  and  future,  by  considering  each  of  them 
as  successive  phenomena  of  the  continued  life  of  the  soul. 

We  have  to  do  thus  far  only  with  time-relations  in  the  con- 
crete, and  as  given  in  consciousness.  By  consciousness  as  here 
used  it  is  obvious  we  do  not  intend  merely  the  power  or  the  act 
by  which  the  soul  knows  its  own  states  as  present  and  imme- 
diate. In  this  sense  we  cannot  be  conscious  of  duration.  We 


§  271.        MATHEMATICAL  RELATIONS :     TIME  AND  SPACE.  457 

must  include  some  use  of  the  representative  power  in  respect  to 
past  and  future  events,  as  well  as  the  belief  that  what  is  rep- 
resented, was  or  will  be  actual.  Consciousness  must  be  enlarged 
to  this  extent  of  meaning,  before  it  can  connect  objects  in  the  re- 
lations of  time. 

III.   Of  the  mutual  relations  of  Extended  and  Enduring  objects, 

§  271.  Material  objects,  as  we  have  seen,  are  ap- 
prehended by  sense-perception  as  extended.    Spiritual  cems  extended 
acts  and  states  are  known  in  consciousness  as  endur-  SSjecta  together! 
ing.     But  sense-perception  and  consciousness  occur 
in  fact,  as  two  elements  in  the  same  psychical  energy  or  state. 
As  a  consequence,  the  .relations  of  extension  and  duration  are 
intimate  and  interchangeable,  and  the  conceptions  and  language 
originally  derived  from  and  appropriate  to  the  one,  are  appro- 
priated to  the  other. 

First :  The  relations  of  time  are  transferred  from  the  activi- 
ties and  phenomena  of  spirit,  to  the  activities  and  phenomena  of 
matter. 

Duration  or  continuance  is,  as  we  have  seen,  originally  dis- 
cerned of  the  activities  and  phenomena  of  the  spirit.  To  these 
the  relations  of  time  are  directly  and  properly  applied.  When 
these  relations  are  affirmed  of  more  than  one  object,  whether  of 
matter  or  spirit,  the  intervention  of  the  memory  of  the  observer 
is  required.  We  cannot  say  of  the  trotting  of  a  horse,  of  the 
flight  of  a  bullet,  or  of  any  other  motion,  that  it  continued  so 
many  seconds  or  minutes,  without  supposing  the  observer  who 
is  all  the  while  looking  on,  to  translate  the  objects  really  taking 
place  into  objects  as  perceived  by  himself,  i.  e.,  into  results  of  acts  of 
his  own,  each  enduring  so  much  time.  Material  acts  or  phenom- 
ena must  be  connected  by  the  soul's  subjective  activity  that 
they  may  be  recalled.  Moreover,  whatever  may  take  place  in 
the  series  of  objective  or  material  acts;  that  which  is  unobserved 
is  totally  omitted  in  the  estimate  of  time :  to  the  mind  as  enduring 
it  is,  as  though  it  had  not  been  at  all.  The  relation  of  time 
can  neither  be  applied,  nor  thought  of  as  applied  to  any  material 
acts  or  events,  except  through  the  medium  of  the  duration  of 
some  person  who  has  first  applied  to  them  his  own  spiritual  ex- 
periences either  in  fact  or  imagination.  Every  such  applica- 
tion, when  fully  translated  or  explicated,  is  made  as  follows. 
20 


458  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  271. 

While   1   was  thinking  or  observing  for  so  long  a  time  the,  horse 
trotted  or  the  bullet  sped  for  the  same  space  of  time. 

Second  :  But  though  duration,  as  a  spiritual  experience,  is  the 
ultimate  standard  or  measure ;  the  actual  measures  of  the  dura- 
tion even  of  spiritual  phenomena, — are  taken  from  the  objective 
or  material  world.  The  reason  is  obvious.  Any  standard 
furnished  from  individual  and  spiritual  experience  must  be  so 
indeterminate  to  one's  self  as  to  be  useless,  and,  moreover,  must 
be  wholly  inaccessible  to  every  one  besides.  Though,  in  our  ulti- 
mate analysis,  we  say  to  ourselves,  "  While  I  was  thinking  and 
feeling  so  and  so,  the  pendulum  vibrated,  the  horse  ran,  the 
bullet  sped  so  or  so  long,"  yet  it  is  practically  impossible  for  us  to 
fix  and  render  familiar  any  individual  or  often  repeated  series  of 
thoughts  and  feelings,  so  as  to  use  it  as  a  standard  even  for  our- 
selves. Even  if  we  could  do  this  for  ourselves,  we  could  not 
bring  it  within  the  reach  and  use  of  others.  But  two  individuals, 
and  a  great  number  of  individuals,  can  observe  the  same 
vibrating  pendulum,  the  same  advancing  and  retreating  shadow 
on  the  dial,  or  the  same  rising  and  setting  sun,  and  can  use 
these  as  standards  to  measure  all  phenomena  whether  internal 
or  external. 

Third :  the  language  of  duration  is  taken  from  material  and 
extended  objects,  for  a  similar  reason.  In  fact  and  from  neces 
sity,  all  the  relations  of  time  are  expressed  in  terms  originally 
appropriate  to  material  objects,  and  the  relations  of  extension 
which  they  involve.  Long,  short,  before,  after,  etc.,  were  first 
applied  to  material  objects,  and  from  them  transferred  to  the  re- 
lations of  time.  As  will  be  seen  hereafter,  this  is  but  a  single 
example  of  the  necessity  by  which  the  language  and  terms  of 
every  kind  that  are  applied  to  spirit  and  its  relations  must  be  de- 
rived from  space-objects  and  space-relations. 

Material  objects  are  not  only  known  to  be  extended,  but  as 
measuring  one  another,  i.  e.,  as  susceptible  of  quantity.  Quan- 
tity supposes  the  inquiry,  How  much?  How  many?  or,  How  great? 
It  has  for  its  answer,  So  much,  So  many,  So  large— referring  at 
once  to  some  object  which  as  a  unit  or  standard  measures  a 
whole.  The  extended  material  universe,  as  at  first  vaguely  and 
confusedly  conceived,  is  unbroken,  having  only  superficial  exten- 
sion. By  the  process  of  sense-perception  it  is  soon  broken  inta 


§272.     MATHEMATICAL  RELATIONS:  TIMIS  AND  SPACE.         459 

separate  objects,  each  of  which  may  be  compared  with  the  whole, 
in  respect  to  breadth  and  the  other  relations. 

As  extended  objects  divide  and  measure  one  another,  so  one  or 
more  separate  acts  or  states  of  the  soul  which  follow  one  another 
in  a  series,  may  be  contemplated  as  dividing,  and  yet  making  up 
this  whole,  the  whole  of  time  being  constituted  by  the  continued 
activity  of  the  soul  during  these  its  different  acts.  Measure  in  tho 
general  sense,  as  applied  to  spirit  )bjects  and  material  objects, im- 
plies the  relation  of  whole  and  parts.  This  relation,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  involved  in  the  analysis  and  synthesis  of  sense-perception, 
consciousness,  representation,  and  thought,  etc.,  and  is  essential  to 
the  very  process  and  product  of  knowledge  in  every  form,  and 
hence  belongs  among  the  formal  relations.  Measure,  in  the 
more  exact  sense,  we  need  not  say,  supposes  number. 

IV.  Of  extended  and  enduring  objects  as  Imaged  or  repre- 
sented: or,  space  and  time  objects  as  enlarged  and  measured  by  the 
Imagination. 

§  272.  Only  a  small  portion  of  the  material  uni- 

;         ,     ,     7  -,       Limitations  of 

verse  is  apprehended  through  the  senses  by  any  smgie  Bt-nse-perccji- 
act  of  the  mind.  The  hand  can  cognize  an  object  of 
only  equal  extent  with  itself.  The  eye  has  a  far  wider,  but  still 
a  very  limited  range.  All  beyond  either,  is  apprehended  and 
measured  by  the  representative  power.  Even  within  the  limits 
to  which  the  eye  reaches,  and  upon  those  very  objects  which  the 
eye  seems  to  command,  the  representative  power  is  largely  em- 
ployed in  estimating  extent  in  the  dimensions  of  distance  and 
size. 

That  which  i?  before  the  eye  is  the  utmost  which  the  eye  can 
in  any  sense  be  said  to  perceive,  and  much  even  of  this  extent  is 
estimated  by  the  eye  of  the  mind.  The  objects  within  the  reach  of 
the  hand  and  the  direct  inspection  of  the  eye,  we  measure  by  select- 
ing some  one  as  a  unit,  in  the  manner  explained.  Those  beyond 
these  bounds,  we  measure  in  a  similar  way,  with  .this  difference 
only,  that  the  material  measured,  and  the  standard  by  which  it 
is  measured,  are  furnished  by  the  imagination  only,  working 
upon  the  suggestions  or  occasions  which  perceived  objects  furnish 
We  spem  to  perceive  the  real  height  of  the  lofty  tree  that  shoots 
up  from  the  horizon  against  the  sky,  while  it  is  but  a  mote  to  the 
ere;  we  think  we  perceive  the  width  of  the  stream  that  threads 


460  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  273. 

the  distant  meadow  with  a  silvery  line,  but  these  estimates  aro 
possible  only  by  the  aid  of  the  picture-making  power,  that  brings 
its  objects  by  the  side  of  the  tree  under  which  we  stand,  or  upon 
the  margin  of  the  stream  wThere  we  sit.  We  have  already  learned, 
in  considering  the  acquired  perceptions,  that  it  is  only  by  the  aid 
of  the  imagination  that  we  supply  the  defects  of  the  senses,  and 
interpret  their  indications. 

Be  -ond  these        §  ^"^'     ^Q  arG  c^ePenc^ent  upon  the  imagination 
wo  uso  tiie  im-  alone  for  our  estimates  of  distance  and  size  beyond 

agination. 

the  limits  of  actual  perception.  These  estimates  vary 
with  the  actual  knowledge  which  we  have  gained  of  such  objects 
by  inspection  and  can  recall  by  the  memory,  and  with  the 
practice  which  results  from  the  frequent  application  of  defi- 
nite standards  by  the  representative  power.  The  adult  surpasses 
the  child  immeasurably  in  this  power.  The  man  of  various 
observation  and  of  disciplined  powers  excels  the  man  of  limited 
knowledge  and  of  untrained  habits;  the  modern, instructed  and 
taught  as  he  is,  presents  a  very  striking  contrast  to  the  wisest 
of  the  ancients. 

A  child  between  three  and  four  years  old,  of  no  inferior  intelli- 
gence, and  of  good  opportunities  for  instruction  and  thought,  was 
once  asked  how  far  distant  the  sun  sets,  and  answered  promptly, 
In  the  next  field.  This  child  had  walked  and  driven  for  miles 
in  every  direction  from  its  home,  and  would  have  remem- 
bered, if  prompted  by  leading  questions,  that  all  the  roadways 
along  which  it  had  gone  were  bordered  by  adjacent  houses,  fields, 
and  gardens,  like  those  within  sight,  but  it  had  never  learned 
to  combine  these  objects  by  imagination  or  to  measure  such  a 
whole  by  the  unit  of  a  familiar  standard  so  as  to  estimate 
their  relative  dimensions. 

The  conceptions  and  estimates  of  the  uncultivated  man  are  very 
like  those  of  the  immature  child,  especially  if  such  a  man  is  con- 
fined by  his  habits  of  life  to  a  single  narrow  valley  or  a  limited 
range  of  travel.  Every  thing  beyond  these  limits  is  confused  and 
unmeasured.  The  horizon  of  his  actual  perceptions,  or  the  slightly 
enlarged  horizon  of  his  expeditions  for  hunting  and  war,  includes  all 
that  he  knows  or  soberly  imagines.  He  may  at  times  fill  the  blank 
vacuity  beyond,  with  objects  that  are  monstrous,  horrid,  and  gro- 
tesque— objects  that  are  terrific  to  his  unintelligent  fears,  or  are 


§  274.        MATHEMATICAL  RELATIONS  :     TIME  AND  SPACE.  4G1 

bewildering  to  his  insane  expectations  ;  but  lie  fixes  on  few  or  none 
which  hold  definite  or  rational  relations  to  others  as  measures  or 
bounds.  The  spatial  world  formed  by  both  child  and  savage,  is 
well  represented  by  the  rude  maps  of  the  early  geographers,  in 
•which  the  countries  actually  traversed  are  drawn  with  a  certain 
degree  of  definiteuess,  though  the  near  is  out  of  all  proportion  to 
the  remote ;  but  the  regions  beyond  arc  a  blank  bounded  by  an  un- 
certain line,  along  which  uncouth  monsters  are  placed,  or  the  un- 
known and  measureless  water  or  desert  shuts  in  the  picture. 

The  child  and  savage  neither  think  nor  care  how  large  are  the 
sun  and  the  stars,  or  how  many  are  the  steps,  the  miles,  or 
leagues,  which  would  be  required  to  reach  them.  In  this  way, 
and  in  this  only,  can  we  explain  the  very  inadequate  conceptions 
011  these  subjects  which  the  early  astronomers  accepted. 

§  274.  Our  estimates  of  time-objects,  like  those  of 
space-objects,  are  largely  the  work  of  the  representa-  time- objects 
tive  faculty.  The  passing  and  present  acts  and 
states  of  our  own  spirits,  and  the  coincident  operations  and  phe- 
nomena of  the  material  world, are  the  only  time  objects  of  which 
we  have  direct  cognizance.  Past  objects  are  gone.  Future 
objects  do  not  yet  exist.  Present  objects  alone  directly  confront 
the  mind.  The  past  must  be  recalled  by  memory,  the  future 
must  be  anticipated  in  the  imagination,  i.  e.t  both  must  be  re-pre- 
sented to  the  mind,  so  as  with  the  present  to  complete  the  series1  of 
time  objects. 

To  measure  past  events,  we  must  be  able  to  recall 

•  11^  Different   ca- 

them  in  their  order,  so  as  to  have  before  us  the  ma-   pacities  in  dir- 

.  I'erent  men. 

tenal  which  we  are  to  estimate.  But  men  diner 
greatly  in  their  capacity  to  revive  past  objects  in  their  fulness  and 
order.  If, the  capacity  to  recall  with  success  be  possessed,  time 
and  effort  must  be  added  that  any  past  series  may  be  restored,  so 
as  to  be  estimated  and  measured.  Some  self-discipline  and  prae- 
ti3e  are  required  that  a  measure  may  be  prepared  from  our  inner 
experience  which  shall  be  ready  for  use,  and  also  that  the  same 
standard  shall  be  uniformly  applied. 

Differences  in  both  these   particulars  in  different 

.  Differences  in 

persons,  and   in  the  same  persons  at  different   cimes,   the  estimates 

•!•/*»  i-i  of  time- 

account  for  the  singular  dmerences  which  are  so  no- 
torious in  our  estimates  of  time.     No  fact  is  more  generally  ac« 


462  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  274. 

cepted,  than  that  two  series  of  events  may  occupy  the  same  length  of 
time  as  measured  by  the  clock,  and  may  seem  to  vary  very  greatly 
from  one  another  as  measured  by  the  mind.  If  we  are  waiting 
impatiently  for  the  arrival  of  a  friend  or  a  railway  train  ;  or  if 
we  are  listening  to  a  tiresome  conversation  or  a  tedious  lecture, 
the  time  seems  very  long.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  conversa- 
tion is  interesting,  or  the  pastime  is  absorbing,  the  time  flies 
swiftly  along.  The  child  cannot  believe  that  the  hour  has  come 
which  calls  him  from  his  play,  to  school  or  to  bed.  A  trip  by 
a  steamer  seems  much  longer  than  a  trip  by  railway,  when  the 
time  is  the  same.  Each  are  sensibly  shortened  if  the  tedium  is 
beguiled  by  spirited  conversation.  A  week  spent  in  the  daily 
routine  of  regular  employment,  goes  quickly  by ;  while  a  week 
of  constant  traveling,  filled  up  by  a  rapid  succession  of  exciting 
objects,  often  seems  surprisingly  long.  The  years  of  childhood 
glide  slowly  away.  Every  day  and  every  month  stretches  to  an 
interminable  length,  because  our  present  enjoyment  brings  no 
disappointment,  and  because  it  stands  between  us  and  some 
future  happiness  which  the  mind  is  impatient  to  grasp.  The 
years  of  our  busy  middle  life  slip  hastily  by,  though  we  would 
fain  delay  their  flight,  because  we  are  too  busy  to  measure  the 
passing  years. 

The  constructions  and  measurements  of  space  and  time  which 
we  have  thus  far  considered,  do  not  involve  definite  relations  of 
number  and  magnitude.  They  are  made  for  practical  use  and 
convenience,  and  require  only  general  impressions  of  their  time 
or  space  relations,  or  a  ready  reference  to  some  familiar  object  or 
series  as  a  standard  of  measurement.  The  mind  judges  the  time 
spent  in  one  occupation  to  "be  about  as  long  as  the  time  spent  in 
another.  '  It  took  me  about  as  long,  or  twice  or  half  as  long,  as 
to  do  this  or  that  familiar  act.  The  distance  from  A  to  B  is 
equal  to  the  distance  from  C  to  D ;  or  it  may  be  greater  or  less/ 
But  when  we  say  London  is  3  or  4,000  miles  from  New  York,  or, 
the  moon  is  238,650  miles  distant  from  the  earth  ;  or,  Washing- 
ton and  Napoleon  were  born  and  died  so  many  years  after  the 
birth  of  our  Lord,  we  apply  measurements  of  a  different  char- 
acter, by  means  of  definite  standards  of  both  space  and  time. 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  in  this  connection,  the  history  of  the 
progress  made  by  the  human  race  in  the  standards  of  both  time 


§275.        MATHEMATICAL  RELATIONS :     TIME  AND  SPACE.  463 

and  space.  The  savage  measures  time  by  the  budding  of  the  oak, 
or  the  return  and  departure  of  birds  or  other  game.  By  and 
by  he  marks  the  coming  and  going  of  the  moon.  Then  rude  de- 
vices like  the  clepsydra  or  the  sand-dial  are  introduced.  Last 
of  all,  the  scientific  observer  employs  the  chronometer  and  the 
astronornhal  clock. 

So,  in  standards  of  length,  the  mind  has  passed  from  the  use 
of  parts  of  the  body,  to  measurements  by  the  aid  of  the  pendu- 
lum, or  a  portion  of  a  circle  of  the  earth,  in,  order  to  find  an 
accurate  and  trustworthy  standard. 

Standards  of  both  space  and  time  are  derived  from  whence  stan- 
material  objects,  real  or  imagined.  No  images  can  be  space  and  time 
formed  of  space  or  time  as  such,  or  of  what  are  some- 
times called  pure  or  empty  space  and  time,  but  only  of  those  ob- 
jects or  events  which  hold  a  relation  to  either  or  to  both.  When 
these  are  pictured  or  imaged,  they  carry  witb.  them  those  rela- 
tions which  the  originals  necessarily  involve,  and  from  which  they 
cannot  be  severed  in  reality  or  in  thought  (§  206).  Thus,  for  a 
standard  of  space,  the  words  yard,  or  rod,  or  mile,  may  call  up 
some  visible  or  tangible  object  most  indefinitely  pictured,  or  with 
the  words,  a  minute,  an  hour,  a  day,  or  year,  some  series  of  events 
that  have  required  a  remembered  period,  or  a  part  of  such  a 
period.  Both  these  are  pictured,  not  for  their  own  sake,  but  for 
the  sake  of  the  time  or  space  which  they  suggest.  But  these 
standards  are  concepts  as  well  as  images,  and  they  cannot  be  com- 
pletely understood,  even  as  images,  till  they  are  considered  also 
as  concepts.  This  leads  us  to  consider 

V.  Space  and  time  objects  as  Generalized;  or,  the  Concepts  of 
the  relations  of  objects  to  time  and  space. 

§  275.  Different  individual  objects  and  events  hold 

.  .  J  How  the  rela- 

simuar  space  and  time  relations,  whether  thev  are   tions  of  spac« 

J  and    time    ob- 

presented  to  sense  and  consciousness,  or  are  represented  jecta  are  gen- 
to  the  imagination.  Space-objects  may  be  alike  in 
relative  position,  distance,  form,  size,  etc.,  etc.  Time  objects  may 
be  alike  in  coexistence,  in  antecedence  or  subsequence,  in  their 
relative  place  in  the  order  of  occurrence,  and  in  the  intervals  by 
which  they  are  separated  from  one  another  or  from  any  other 
event.  The  mutual  relations  which  exist  between  time  and  space 
objects  may  also  be  common  to  any  number  of  both  classes. 


464  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  275. 

These  relations  are  as  readily  generalized  as  are  the  attributes  of 
material  or  spiritual  things.  It  is  as  easy  to  generalize  the  forms 
and  sizes  of  objects  as  their  color  or  their  taste ;  the  beforeness  and 
after  ness  of  a  spiritual  act,  as  any  one  of  its  qualities  of  knowledge 
or  feeling. 

It  is  true  there  is  this  difference :  these  relations  are  in  their 
nature  incapable  of  being  directly  picturable  to  the  imagination, 
like  the  properties  of  matter  and  spirit.  In  order  to  represent 
them  at  all,  we  must  first  picture  the  objects  which  hold  them 
and  so  recall  or  suggest  the  relations  themselves.  But  as  concepts 
these  generalized  products  are  as  easily  formed  and  comprehended 
as  any  others. 

The  words  by  which  these  relations  are  named  and  known,  are 
as  truly  generic  as  the  terms  usually  called  common.  All  of 
them,  it  is  true,  have  a  more  or  less  direct  relation  to  an  indivi- 
dual place  and  time,  and  seem  therefore  to  be  less  general  than 
the  other  appellatives ;  but  they  are  all  capable  of  being  equally 
attributed  to  many  individual  objects,  and  hence  are  as  truly 
generic  as  they.  We  cannot  say  here,  there,  now,  before  and  after, 
without  implying  that  an  individual  observer  occupying  an  indi^ 
vidual  place  at  an  individual  portion  of  time  apprehends  tht 
object  in  this  very  relation,  but  it  is  possible  that  many  objects  at 
different  times  may  be  here  or  there,  and  v.  v.  now  or  then,  before 
or  after,  i.  e.,  at  the  same  time,  in  different  places.  Hence 
the  hereness  and  thereness,  the  newness  and  thenness,  the  beforeness 
and  afterness  may  be  common  to  many  individuals,  and  like  sensible 
or  spiritual  qualities,  may  be  affirmed  or  predicated  of  all.  These 
objects  may  be  grouped  under,  or  classified  by  means  of  these 
general  relations.  The  terms  which  denote  these,  take  their  place 
side  by  side  with  other  common  terms.  Very  many  adjectives 
of  time,  as  prior,  later,  present,  past,  and  future,  and  of  space,  as 
long,  short,  high,  deep,  and  broad,  and  of  form,  as  circular,  trian* 
gular,  square,  spherical,  and  conical,  and  of  motion,  as  swift,  slow, 
etc.,  will  occur  as  belonging  to  these  classes  of  words.  All  these 
classes  of  terms,  like  all  other  notion  words,  require  some  image 
to  explain  and  illustrate  them  to  the  mind.  But  they  are  pecu- 
liar in  this,  that  every  object  in  nature  and  in  spirit  has  some  re- 
lation to  time  and  space,  and  hence  it  is  indifferent  what  one  is 
cited  to  exemplify  these  universal  relations. 


§  276.        MATHEMATICAL  RELATIONS :     TIME  AND  SPACE.  465 

VI.  Of  Mathematical  Quantity;  the  process  by  which  its  concepts 
are  evolved,  and  their  relations  to  time  and  space. 

§  276.    These  concepts  naturally  divide  themselves 
into  two  classes,  the  concepts  of  magnitude  and  the  con- 
cepts   of  number,  or  the  concepts  which  are  respect- 
ively  related  to  space  and  time.    We  begin  with  those 
which  imply  the  existence  of  space,  as  being  the  most  easily  ex- 
plained and  understood  ;  i.  e.,  with  geometrical   concepts  or  con- 
cepts of  pure  magnitude. 

Of  these  the  most  familiar  are,  the  point,  the  line,  the  surface, 
the  triangle,  the  square,  the  rectangle,  the  rhomboid,  the  solid,  the 
cube,  the  sphere,  etc. 

These  terms  stand  for  both  images  and  concepts,  in  other  words, 
for  the  products  of  the  imagination  and  of  thought.  As  images 
they  are  individual,  as  concepts  they  are  general. 

The  creative  imagination  idealizes  not  only  the  sensible  and 
spiritual  properties  of  these  objects  and  phenomena,  but  it  ideal- 
izes their  space  and  time  relations,  §  181.  It  transforms  the 
perceived  edge  with  its  actual  breadth  and  ragged  outline  into 
the  ideal  line  which  has  neither  breadth  nor  undulation.  It 
smooths  the  undulating  surface  into  an  evenly  lying  geometrical 
superficies.  In  the  same  way  it  refines  the  blunted  corner  of  a 
die  or  cubical  block  into  the  mathematical  point  which  is  ideal- 
ized as  having  place  but  no  extent  in  any  direction.  These  rela- 
tions cannot  themselves  be  thus  imaged,  but  an  object  itself  can 
be  imaged  with  these  relations  thus  idealized.  Every  such  object 
is  at  first  individual.  But  when  the  relation  is  generalized,  we 
have  a  concept  in  place  of  an  image,  holding  the  same  relation  to 
the  concrete  and  individual  which  belongs  to  any  other  concept. 
These  concepts,  like  all  other  concepts,  need  to  be  imaged  and  il- 
lustrated by  concrete  objects.  Only  in  this  way  can  their  import 
be  understood,  and  their  validity  established.  All  geometrical 
conceptions  are  dependent  upon  the  assumption  of  the  space-rela- 
tions of  objects.  "Without  these  space-relations  they  have' no 
meaning.  They  presuppose  the  belief  in  these  space-relations,  as 
actually  belonging  to  every  material  existence.  They  rest  upon 
the  belief  in  that  absolute  and  infinite  space  which  limited  space 
presupposes  and  involves,  Space, with  the  space-relations  of  ob- 
jects, is  the  ever-assumed  background  upon  which  all  geometrical 

20* 


466  THE    HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  277. 

constructions  are  projected,  and  over  against  which  all  its  pro 
cesses  are  interpreted. 

The  reality  and  the  validity  of  these  conceptions 
Geometrical  °f  regt  entirely  upon  the  mind's  own  power  to  construct 
and  comprehend  them.  The  mind  knows  that  it 
can  construct  these  concepts,  and  knows  what  they  are  when  con- 
structed. Geometry  postulates  that  every  student  may  make  these 
concepts  for  himself.  Its  language  is  confident,  "  draw  a  line," 
"  conceive  or  construct  a  plane,"  "  think  of  a  point."  It  lays  the 
foundations  for  its  reasonings  in  these  postulates.  It  defines  the 
meaning  of  these  constructions  by  analyzing  their  relations  to  one 
another  and  to  the  space  to  which  they  all  have  a  common  rela- 
tion. It  illustrates,  or,  as  we  usually  say,  demonstrates  any  rela- 
tions unknown  before  by  referring  to  new  constructions  as  exem- 
plified in  some  material  substance,  for  example,  in  a  cube  or  sphere, 
a  cone,  a  dot,  a  chalk  line,  a  rough  surface  on  a  blackboard  or  pa- 
per bounded  by  marks — which  are  no  mathematical  entities  but 
serve  to  represent  them  and  hold  the  attention  to  the  constructions 
they  represent.  In  the  so-called  demonstrations  of  Geometry  one 
figure  is  supposed  to  be  drawn  in  connection  with  another.  Addi- 
tional figures  are  placed  by  the  side  of  those  with  which  we  begin, 
or  those  already  drawn  are  so  divided  as  to  enable  the  mind  to 
bring  into  comparison  figures  that  had  been  inaccessible  and  in- 
commensurable. As  it  is  with  the  original  and  simpler  definitions,, 
or  postulates,  so  is  it  with  these  complex  constructions:  space  is 
supposed  as  the  necessary  attendant  of  each  and  of  all,  making 
possible  the  original  constructions  and  the  evolution  of  the  new 
relations,  which  the  mind  discerns  ultimately  so  soon  as  the  requi 
site  figures  and  connecting  lines  have  been  prepared  and  com- 
bined. As  has  already  been  shown,  §  229,  the  nerve  and  force  of 
the  geometrical  demonstration  rests  more  upon  these  successive 
intuitions  than  upon  that  element  which  is  properly  deductive. 
The  concepts  of  §  277.  The  concepts  of  number  are  conditioned  upon 
number.  those  relations  of  objects  to  time  which  are  involved  in 

the  mind's  continued  activity  in  uniting  them  as  parts  into  wholes. 
To  number,  some  object  must  be  selected  which  shall  serve  as 
the  unit,  i.  e.,  which  can  be  conveniently  repeated  as  a  recurring 
part  of  a  whole  of  extended  objects,  or  of  a  continued  series  of  men- 
tal states. 


§  277.        MATHEMATICAL  RELATIONS :     TIME  AND  SPACE.  467 

These  constituent  parts  are  numbered  when  the  mind  connects 
each  with  the  next  by  relations  to  its  own  activity  in  time. 
That  with  which  it  begins  is  called  first.  The  next,  when 
connected  with  the  one  taken  first  in  time,  is  second.  When  ano- 
ther is  thus  connected,  we  have  the  third,  and  so  on.  Thus  we 
count,  or  number.  The  act  seems  so  simple  as  scarcely  to  admit 
or  require  explanation.  It  is  obvious,  however,  that  this  act  is 
only  possible  as  we  connect  and  contemplate  objects  in  relation  to 
a  consecutive  series  of  mental  acts — that  is,  a  series  of  mental  acts 
following  each  other  in  time. 

We  find,  then,  that  the  relation  of  number  requires  that  ob- 
jects should  first  be  connected"  as  wholes  and  parts,  and  then 
contemplated  in  an  arrangement  which  depends  entirely  upon 
the  time-relations  of  the  mind  that  views  them.  In  other 
words,  number  depends  upon  those  relations  of  time  which  we  as- 
sume and  know  to  be  inseparable  from  the  soul's  own  subjective 
activity. 

When  a  series  of  mental  states  is  itself  measured  and  num- 
bered, it  must  be  remembered  that  in  reflective  consciousness  this 
series  itself  is  made  objective  to  the  mind.  It  is  treated  or 
viewed  as  though  it  were  a  series  or  whole  of  material  objects. 
It  is  contemplated  by  a  series  of  acts  wholly  subjective,  involving 
as  spiritual  acts,  the  attribute  of  duration  to  themselves,  and  as 
successive,  the  relation  of  number  in  the  objects  which  they  unite 
and  measure  as  wholes  and  parts. 

Whatever  objects  are  numbered  must  be  arranged  in  a  continued 
series.  This  is  possible  only  by  the  recognized  relation  of  such 
objects  to  the  mind's  continued  action  in  contemplating  them. 
They  must  also  be  viewed  reciprocally  as  wholes  and  parts, 
as  the  mind  gathers  the  objects,  when  thus  arranged,  into  a 
group,  which  it  breaks  into  parts,  reuniting  '\hese  parts  with 
each  other  at  its  will,  and  making  its  units  larger  or  smaller 
as  choice  or  chance  directs.  To  both  these  relations  time  is 
the  necessary  condition, — to  the  continued  subjective  act  of  the 
mind  in  connecting  objects  into  a  series,  and  to  the  arranging  of 
them  as  wholes  and  parts. 

In  other  words :  To  the  act  of  counting,  time  must  be  assumed 
as  both  the  subjective  and  objective  condition  ;  but  the  relations  by 
which  objects  are  viewed  or  connected  in  the  act  of  counting 


468  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  278. 

when  abstracted,  generalized,  imaged  and  symbolized,  are  the 
relations  of  number. 

These  relations  can  be  applied  to  any  objects  whatever — to 
material  objects,  to  spiritual  objects,  to  acts  or  states  of  the  mind 
itself,  to  the  very  acts  of  the  mind  in  numbering ;  in  short,  to  any 
objects  whatever,  whether  of  direct  or  reflex  cognition.  Any 
series  of  objects  can  be  used  as  the  symbols  or  images  of 
number.  Thus  a  row  of  marbles,  of  kernels  of  grain,  or  a  series 
of  marks  is  usually  selected.  Such  objects  can  be  readily  inter- 
changed, and  they  are  chosen  because  they  suggest  little  more  than 
their  numerical  relations.  For  convenience  of  recording  and  re- 
calling the  results  of  the  processes  of  counting,  arbitrary  symbols 
have  been  selected.  Thus,  for  two  objects  made  one  by  a  single 
addition,  we  employ  the  symbol  of  two  marks,  as  in  the  Roman 
system,  IT, — later,  the  Arabic  character  2 ;  then  III  Rom.,  3  Ar.; 
then  instead  of  five  marks  we  use  V  and  5 ;  instead  of  four 
and  six,  V  diminished  by  I  going  before  and  increased  by  I  fol- 
lowing, or  the  Arabic  characters  4  and  6,  etc.,  etc. 

The  principal  concepts  of  number  are  the  unit,  the  sum,  the  dif- 
ference, the  multiple,  the  divisor  and  the  ratio. 

These  concepts  cannot  be  defined  so  readily  as  they  can  be 
imaged  and  exemplified.  To  explain  and  illustrate  their  import 
we  must  go  back  to  the  several  acts  which  represent  them. 
Their  meaning  is  originally  taught  and  successively  enforced  br 
directions  to  select  certain  objects  and  proceed  with  them  thus 
and  thus,  i.  e.,  they  rest  upon  postulates  as  truly  as  do  the  concepts 
of  geometry.  They  assume  that  the  mind  can  perform  certain 
thought-processes  which  result  in  certain  thought-products.  The 
psychological  condition  of  these  processes  is  the  arrangement  of  ob- 
jects in  a  series,  whether  material  or  spiritual.  Their  logical  condi- 
tion is  the  reality  of  time-relations,  and  of  time  itself  as  making  these 
relations  possible.  That  number  depends  upon  and  implies  time, 
is  obvious  still  further  from  the  language  which  we  continually  use 
in  our  definitions  and  analyses.  We  say,  add  this  so  many  times  ; 
ten  taken  twice,  i.  e.,  two  times  ten,  is  twenty ;  ten  divided  one  time 
by  two,  or  diminished  once  by  three,  is  respectively  five  and  seven. 
§  278.  The  application  of  number  to  magnitude,  01 

The  applica-       „      . 

tion  of  number  of   the  concepts  ot    discrete  to  those  GI  continuous 
quantity,  depends  on  the  mutual  relations  of  time  and 


§  279.       MATHEMATICAL  RELATIONS :     TIME  AND  SPACE.  40U 

space  objects  which  have  already  been  explained,  §  273.  Wo 
take  any  portion  of  space  as  a  whole,  we  divide  it  into  parts,  we 
number  these  parts,  we  discern  ratios  between  them.  We  ex- 
press the  powers  of  curves  by  their  equivalent  formulae  of  lines 
as  symbolized  by  numbers,  etc.,  etc.,  creating  all  those  conceptions 
and  performing  those  processes  which  modern  analysis  has  disco- 
vered and  applied. 

VII.    Of  the  application  of  mathematical  conceptions  to  Material 
phenomena. 

§  279.  Pure  Geometry  deals  only  with  ideal  con- 
structions  in  ideal  Space,  and  pure  Arithmetic  and 
ato  Algebra  with  ideal  concepts  conditioned    on   ideal 
ects  Time.     The  possibility  of  applying  these  ideal  crea- 

tions to  material  things  and  phenomena  is  explained 
by  the  fact  that  the  concepts  of  number  and  magnitude  are  all 
generalized  from  the  relations  of  concrete  objects  and  events  to 
both  space  and  time.  In  the  order  of  time  and  acquisition  we 
know  applied  number  and  applied  magnitude  before  we  know 
pure  number  and  pure  magnitude.  The  latter  are  always  ex- 
plained by  the  former.  On  the  other  hand,  when  we  apply  the 
concepts  of  pure  mathematics  to  material  substances,  we  find  that 
those  properties  which  were  left  out  of  view  in  forming  them  must 
be  brought  into  view  to  modify  our  ideal  inferences.  In  esti- 
mating the  velocity  of  bodies  we  think  of  them  only  as  capable 
of  constant  force  and  of  accelerated  motion.  When  we  com- 
pare the  results  of  our  mathematical  processes  we  find  that 
they  do  not  hold  good  of  real  phenomena,  because  th<  y  assumed 
what  rarely  if  ever  actually  occurs,  i.  e.,  a  force  that  is  entirely 
constant  and  equable.  Or  perhaps,  they  omitted  to  recognize 
the  increase  of  resistance  consequent  upon  the  increase  of  velocity. 
Thus  in  Mechanics,  bodies  are  viewed  as  attracted  by  gravitation, 
as  held  together  by  cohesion,  as  impelled  by  a  natural  or  artificial 
agency,  as  capable  of  both  force  and  motion,  as  acquiring  and  losing 
velocity.  For  the  purposes  of  this  science  gravitation  is  idealized 
as  a  constant  force  manifested  in  motion,  the  rapidity  of  which 
is  inversely  as  the  square  of  the  distance.  The  nature  of  gravity 
itself  as  a  material  agent,  is  not  considered,  nor  that  of  inertia; 
nor  is  the  resistance  of  intervening  media,  but  only  the  simple 
fact  of  motion,  or  a  tendency  to  motion,  with  certain  constant 


470  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  280. 

relations  to  space  and  time.  In  like  manner  cohesion  is  defined 
by  the  relations  involved  in  the  phenomena  of  motion.  So  the  laws 
and  properties  of  bodies  in  motion  or  in  pressure  are  expressed  by- 
space  and  time  relations.  Whether  bodies  do  in  fact  move  or 
tend  to  move  with  regularity  in  these  relations  so  that  their 
motions  can  be  measured  or  computed,  are  facts  that  can  be 
ascertained  by  observation  and  induction  only. 

For  example :  Newton's  great  laws  in  respect  to  the  causes  and 
continuance  of  force  and  motion  are  all  generalized  observations 
of  facts  of  sense  enforced  on  grounds  of  high  probability.  In 
other  words,  they  are  grounded  upon  induction.  These  laws  or 
facts  being  assumed,  we  reason  and  compute  with  respect  to  the 
direction  and  rate  of  bodies  in  motion,  with  respect  to  the 
pressure  and  weight  of  bodies  tending  to  move,  and  with  respect 
to  the  results  of  bodies  conspiring  together  in  motion,  just  as  we 
can  reason  or  compute  with  respect  to  a  sizeless  or  weightless 
point  that  is  supposed  to  move  in  a  breadthless  line.  That  is, 
we  apply  to  these  material  objects  the  concepts,  relations  and 
rules  of  the  pure  mathematics.  But  when  we  compare  the  results 
of  our  computations  and  demonstrations  with  bodies  actually 
existing  and  phenomena  actually  occurring,  we  find  that  the  two 
do  not  coincide.  When  we  inquire  why  the  prophecy  given  by  our 
demonstration  or  computation  is  not  fulfilled  by  the  facts  of  the 
velocity,  weight  or  pressure  of  the  material  bodies  with  which  we 
come  in  contact,  we  account  for  the  discrepancy  by  those 
elements  or  properties  which  we  were  obliged  wholly  or  partially 
to  disregard,  such  as  inertia,  resistance,  friction,  and  the  like.  In 
many  cases  these  are  so  unimportant  that  we  subject  them  to  no 
estimate,  but  take  the  result  as  exact  enough  for  our  purposes. 
In  other  cases,  as  in  gunnery,  astronomy,  and  the  working  of 
machinery,  we  seek  to  express  the  value  and  effect  of  these  very 
elements  in  special  mathematical  formulae,  and  subject  them  to 
mathematical  computations  similar  to  those  which  we  had  applied 
to  the  prime  forces. 

VIII.    Of  the  relation  of  space  and  time  concepts  to  Motion. 

§  280.  It  is  obvious  that  the  space  and  time  rela- 
SPa      tions  of  objects  when  thus  generalized  become  universah 
of  a  very  wide  extension.     The  inquiry  naturally  sug- 
gests itself  whether  these  relations  can  be  generalized 


§280.        MATHEMATICAL  RELATIONS :     TIME  AND  SPACE.  471 

still  further,  and  so  be  included  under  relations  of  a  still  wider 
extension,  as  well  as  subordinated  under  one  another. 

We  find  the  medium  of  such  generalization  in  the  capacity  of 
material  objects  for  motion.  Every  material  thing  can  be  moved. 
The  eye  and  the  hand  learn  to  separate  the  objects  of  perception 
from  the  great  universe  with  which  they  are  at  first  united,  by 
the  circumstance  that  they  are  moved  and  movable.  The  limit- 
ing surfaces,  edges  and  corners  of  such  objects  are  determined 
and  traced  out  by  the  moving  of  the  hand  or  the  eye  along  or 
up  to  their  several  limits.  Every  act  of  motion  brings  with  it 
the  possible  suggestion  of  some  one  of  the  relations  of  space. 

We  find,  moreover,  that  there  is  not  a  single  relation  of  space 
which  cannot  at  once  be  brought  before  the  mind,  and,  as  it  were, 
suggested  by  motion.  Each  one  of  these  can,  in  a  certain 
sense,  be  expressed  and  defined  in  terms  and  concepts  of  motion. 

Even  the  relations  of  position  can  be  expressed  by  means  of 
motion.  The  meaning  of  here  and  there,  above  and  below, 
behind  and  before,  are  all  definable  by  acts  of  motion — to  and 
from,  this  way  and  that  way, — joined  with  counter  or  resisting  mo- 
tions, which  stop  their  progress.  When  the  question  is  asked  of 
a  child,  What  do  you  mean  by  any  one  of  these  terms  ?  he  inva- 
riably replies  by  explanations  by  motion.  He  says,  in  effect, 
Move  an  object  in  this  or  that  direction,  and  then  arrest  it,  and 
it  will  be  here  or  there,  before  or  behind,  above  or  below. 

The  relations  of  time  can  also  be  generalized  by  means  of 
the  motions  of  material  objects.  A  moving  body  suggests  duration 
as  truly  as  it  does  extension,  when  all  its  import  is  received ;  the 
act  of  starting  suggests  then  as  truly  as  it  does  there ;  the  act  of 
stopping  suggests  now  as  well  as  here.  It  may  have  come  to  do 
so  by  a  secondary'and  transferred  meaning;  but  it  does  so  in  fact 
and  by  a  universal  and  inevitable  connection. 

Even  when  time  is  thought  or  affirmed  of  mental  acts  and 
events,  it  is  still  represented  by  motion  in  space.  Hence  by  a 
natural  consequence;  when  time  is  affirmed  of  processes  (or 
states)  that  are  purely  spiritual,  its  relations  are  represented  in 
language  and  thought  by  motions  that  are  corporeal.  It  follows 
that  motion  furnishes  all  the  materials  for  a  common  generaliza- 
tion of  both  space  and  time  objects,  and  for  the  comprehension  and 
arrangement  of  time  and  space  relations  in  the  same  logical  system. 


472  THE    HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  28L 

This  explains  why  mathematical  entities  or  quanta  are  so  natu« 
rally  defined  by  means  of  motion ;  a  fact  confirmed  and  illustrated 
by  many  such  definitions.  These  definitions  always  rest  upon, 
and  can  be  expressed  by  postulates,  and  these  postulates  always 
suppose  an  act  or  acts  of  motion.  In  geometry  we  say,  draw  a 
line  ;  terminate  or  bisect  a  line,  giving  a  point ;  move  a  line  and 
it  gives  a  surface.  In  arithmetic  and  algebra  we  say  count,  that 
is,  unite  as  wholes,  or  add,  subtract,  multiply,  and  divide ;  all  of 
which  terms  suggest  or  supposes  some  images  taken  from  spatial 
motion. 

§  281.  The  extended  and  enduring  objects  which 
we  have  thus  far  considered,  are  limited  objects,  and 
tS8  &re  hmi"  tne  relations  to  space  and  time  which  they  involve 
are  also  limited.  Whether  they  are  presented  by 
sense-perception  or  consciousness,  whether  they  are  represented  to 
the  imagination  or  generalized  in  thought,  they  are  necessarily 
limited.  The  so-called  dimensions  of  extension — length,  breadth, 
and  thickness, — and  the  various  relations  of  duration,  can  only 
be  affirmed  of  finite  beings  and  activities.  If  affirmed  of  the  In- 
finite, it  is  of  its  relations  to  the  finite.  Even  mathematical  re- 
lations can  be  conceived  of  only  as  limited  or  definite  quantities. 
These,  as  we  have  seen,  presuppose  some  objects  imagined  to  ej-ist 
in  space,  or  series  of  such  objects  connected  by  acts  continuous  in 
time,  of  which  certain  attributes  and  relations  are  affirmed,  i.  e., 
they  invariably  presuppose  limited  objects. 

The  infinite  and  indefinite  have  therefore  no  place  in  mathe- 
matics. What  is  called  the  mathematical  infinite  is  either  a 
quantity  as  yet  not  measured  or  numbered,  i.e.,  a  quantity  in  re- 
spect to  which  these  processes  have  been  begun  but  are  not  yet 
completed  ;  or  a  quantity  so  nearly  commensurable  with  another 
that  it  may  be  substituted  for  it.  The  so-called  infinite  quanti- 
ties of  the  mathematics  are  quantities  not  yet  actually  or  proxi 
mately  defined,  -/.  e.,  mensurable  but  not  yet  measured  or  defined. 
They  should  be  carefully  distinguished  from  what,  in  distinction 
from  them,  may  be  called  the  actual  infinite  or  unconditioned. 
The  conception  of  the  mathematical  infinite  or  indefinite  may  be 
rendered  possible  by  the  real  infinitude  of  time  and  space,  but  in 
import  the  two  are  wholly  diverse,  if  indeed  we  can  be  said  to 
have  any  concept  at  all  of  the  latter. 


§  282.        MATHEMATICAL  RELATIONS  I    TIME  AND  SPACE.  473 

IX.   Of  Space  and  Time  as  infinite  and  unconditioned. 
§  282.    The  several  attributes  of  limited  extension 

.         ..  .  ,  .  Extension  and 

and  duration,  involve  relationship  to  and  questions   duration  distin- 
guished   from, 
concerning  space  and  time.  but  related  to 

These  attributes  and  properties,  when  considered 
collectively  are  called  collectively,  extension  and  duration.  The 
appropriate  names  of  the  entities  to  which  these  properties  in- 
volve relations,  are  space  and  time.  Thus  distinguished,  exten- 
sion and  duration,  i.  e.,  extension  and  duration  in  the  concrete,  or 
the  extension  and  duration  of  individual  objects,  are  known  by 
experience;  while  space  and  time,  as  soon  as  they  are  appre- 
hended at  all,  are  known  a  priori,  i.  e.,  to  be  the  necessary  and 
fundamental  conditions  of  all  actual  existences  and  events  as  ex- 
tended and  enduripg. 

It  is  not  asserted  that  in  applying  these  attributes  to  objects  of 
experience  the  mind  necessarily  adverts  to  the  relations  to  time 
and  space  which  they  imply,  but  only  that  when  the  mind  gives 
attention  to  them,  it  cannot  fail  to  discover  that  these  relations 
are  implied,  and  with  them  the  existence  of  time  and  space.  To 
make  this  discovery  the  mind  may  need  to  make  the  experience 
of  many  objects  of  sense  and  consciousness.  It  may  need  the 
discipline  of  many  acts  of  attention  to  separate  and  analyze 
what  is  at  first  known  confusedly  and  without  discrimination. 

In  order  fully  to  appreciate  the  time  and  space  relations  of  ob- 
jects and  events  to  one  another  as  well  as  to  time  and  space 
themselves,  the  imagination  may  need  to  be  called  into  exercise. 
One  material  object  may  need  to  be  annexed  to  another  and  still 
others  to  these,  before  space  can  be  fully  understood  in  all  the 
relations  which  it  involves  to  the  extended  objects  thus  believed 
or  supposed  to  exist,  or  to  other  extended  objects  besides.  In  like 
manner,  many  events  must  be  experienced,  in  order  that  the  com- 
mon relations  of  all  these  and  of  all  conceivable  enduring  objects 
to  time,  may  be  distinctly  apprehended,  and  clearly  distinguished 
from  the  time  which  is  common  to  them  all.  The  psychological 
conditions  of  knowledge  are  clearly  distinguishable  from  the  es- 
sence and  the  evidence  of  the  objects  that  are  known.  The  one 
describes  the  subjective  conditions  that  render  it  possible  for  an  in- 
dividual to  employ  and  apply  his  mind  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
discern  a  fact  or  truth.  The  other  describes  objectively,  what  in 


474  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  283- 

its  nature  is  knowable  by  all  individuals  under  these  subjective  con- 
ditions, and  the  evidence,  if  there  be  any,  by  which  it  is  known. 

§  283.    Extension  and  duration  are  also  the  limits 

jectJ  aud  ° '"  or  the  grounds  of  the  limits  of  objects  and  events. 

These  pertain  not  to  space  and  time,  but  to  objects 

and  events  as  related  to  Space  and  Time,  and  therefore  and  by 

this  means,  to  one  another. 

When,  for  example,  I  perceive  a  box  either  inclosing  or  in- 
closed by  what  we  call  a  void,  and  affirm  that  what  is  without 
is  ^  not  that  which  is  within,  or  conversely ;  both  that  which  is 
within  and  without  are  conceived  as  matter  with  surfaces  mutu- 
ally coinciding,  but  yet  dividing  or  limiting  the  one  from  the 
other.  If  I  conceive  of  the  outmost  limit  of  the  universe  of  mat- 
ter and  ask  what  is  beyond,  immediately  as  I  ask  the  question  I 
attach  the  limiting  surface  to  other  matter  which  is  conceived  to 
be  beyond,  and  the  outlines  of  which  I  begin  to  trace  by  the  con- 
structive motion  of  which  the  imagination  is  capable.  Of  this 
outline,  one  portion,  viz.,  the  limiting  surface  already  described, 
is  fixed.  The  others  are  not  yet  drawn ;  the  mind  has  no  occa- 
sion even  to  conceive  them  drawn,  and  it  rests  in  the  knowledge 
or  belief  that  it  might  complete  them  in  any  way  in  which  it 
chooses.  But  as  soon  as  they  should  be  completed  they  must  ne- 
cessarily be  conceived  as  inclosed  by  or  with  matter,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  an  extended  surface  of  that  which  has  no  actual  being 
cannot  be  conceived  or  thought  of. 

In  a  similar  way  the  instant  which  terminates  or  limits  an 
event,  is  the  beginning  of  another  as  yet  inchoate  or  incomplete. 
So  the  beginning  of  an  event  already  past,  is  the  end  of  the  event 
that  was  transacted  before  it. 

What  we  call  Space  and  Time  are  those  entities  which  can  be 
occupied,  as  we  say,  by  beings  and  events,  i.  e.,  which  render  their 
actual  existence  possible,  and  which  in  rendering  them  possible, 
also  make  it  possible  that  they  should  be  limited  from  one  an- 
other, i.  e.,  distinguished  from  one  another  by  their  common 
relations  to  space  and  time. 

It  follows  that :  Relations  of  place  do  not  belong  to  space,  but 
they  belong  to  bodies  perceived  or  imagined  to  exist  in  space. 
Relations  of  time  do  not  belong  to  duration,  but  to  events  occurring 
in,  i  e.,  presupposing  time. 


§285.      MATHEMATICAL  RELATIONS:   TIME  AND  SPACE.         475 

§  284.  Space  and  time  are  unlimited,  simply  be-  In  what  8en86 
cause  the  conception  of  limitation  is  inapplicable  to  them,  5SJJJ3  ^Jj 
because  by  its  very  nature  it  is  only  applicable  to  and  unlimited- 
affirmable  of  extended  matter  and  occurring  events, — when  we 
attempt  to  apply  it  to  Space  and  Time  we  can  only  do  it  by 
moans  of  objects  and  events.  This  attribute  is  therefore  simply 
negative.  It  denies  that  the  relation  of  limitation  which  pertains 
to  bodies  and  acts  can  pertain  to  Space  and  Time. 

It  is  important  to  notice  this  distinction  in  order  that  we  may 
preserve  ourselves  from  many  of  the  alleged  incompatibilities 
which  are  conceived  to  be  involved  in  the  attempt  to  know  or 
conceive  of  Space  and  Time. 

Thus  Hamilton  (Met.  38)  urges  that  we  are  under  the  necessity  of  conceiving 
space  and  time  either  as  an  absolute  maximum  or  an  absolute  minimum,  and  that 
it  is  impossible  to  do  either,  because  the  mind,  as  soon  as  it  has  fixed  the  limits  to 
the  ultimately  great  or  the  ultimately  small,  will  immediately  overstep  or  go  be- 
yond the  limits  which  it  had  just  established,  and  will  find  itself  continually 
baffled  in  its  impotent  efforts  to  grasp  or  conceive  either. 

In  the  same  strain,  Kant  had  urged  that  the  mind,  in  its  attempts  to  conceive  oi 
space  and  time,  must  continually  set  up  two  incompatible  propositions — which 
he  calls  Antinomies — both  of  which  cannot  be  true,  and  yet  one  of  which  would 
seem  to  be  necessary.  Both  overlook  that  the  maximum  and  minimum  which  we 
attempt  to  conceive  are  not  space  and  lime,  but  bodies  and  events  as  limited  in 
space  and  time.  The  maximum  and  minimum  in  the  case  are  not  space  and  time, 
nor  are  they  concepts  of  either,  but  they  are  concepts  of  bodies  and  events  as  re- 
lated to  and  limited  by  space  and  time.  They  are  limited  concepts,  and  in  their 
very  nature  logically  inapplicable  to  objects  which  cannot  be  limited.  To  attempt 
to  think  of  time  and  space  under  any  such  concepts,  however  great  or  small,  is  to 
make  an  effort  which  will  involve  certain  and  constant  contradiction  and  inconsis- 
tency. To  attempt  to  picture  time  and  space  to  the  imagination  is  impossible, 
for  we  can  only  picture  objects  and  events  with  definite  properties  and  charac- 
teristics. Even  when  we  lay  aside  all  properties  except  what  we  call  their  time 
and  space  relations,  what  we  picture,  or  imagine  are  still  limited  objects  in  space 
and  time — objects  with  some  defined  limits  of  extension  and  duration,  but  not 
space  and  time  themselves.  It  is  true  that  every  time  we  picture  or  image  such 
objects  we  must  think  of  their  relations  to  their  correlates,  time  and  space ;  but 
time  and  space,  in  themselves,  can  neither  be  imaged  nor  pictured. 

§  285.  Again,  Space  and  Time  cannot  be  genera-  gpace  an(, 
lized  or  apprehended  by  or  under  concepts.  Concepts  ^eneniBzed 
suppose  definite  attributes  of  objects  limited  by  and  J^J  tshigher 
individualized  in  Time  and  Space.  But  Time  and 
Space  are  withdrawn  from  these  conditions  of  generalization,  for 
they  are  necessarily  supposed  as  the  conditions  and  correlates  of 


476  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  286. 

all  individual  existences  and  their  attributes.  Even  the  relations 
of  extension  and  duration,  by  which  individual  objects  are  pos- 
sible, cannot  be  intelligible  except  by  means  of  these  very  entities 
which  are  the  necessary  correlates  to  these  universal  properties 
of  all  individual  existences.  These  related  properties  are  gen- 
sralizable,  but  the  entities  themselves  to  which  they  are  related 
cannot  be  generalized. 

Space  and  Time  cannot  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term  be 
defined.  If  we  cannot  form  concepts  of  these  entities  by  means 
of  generalized  attributes  or  relations,  it  is  manifest  that  we  can- 
not define  these  concepts,  because  to  define  is  simply  to  state  the 
attributes  into  which  a  concept  thus  formed  can  be  resolved, 
§  214.  They  are  not  simple  concepts,  for  simple  concepts  pertain 
to  single  indecomposible  attributes  or  relations,  §  197,  and  no  one 
will  for  an  instant  believe  or  contend  that  the  import  of  either 
space  or  time  is  exhausted  by  any  single  property  or  relation. 

What  is  demonstrated  to  be  necessary  from  the  nature  of  the 
case,  is  confirmed  by  fact  and  experiment  whenever  we  make  the 
trial.  Whenever  we  endeavor  to  define  these  entities  we  find 
ourselves  employing  concepts  which  presuppose  that  they  are 
already  known.  Every  concept  that  we  use  is  an  attribute  or 
relation  of  some  object  or  event  which  exists  in  space  or  time, 
and  which  implies  some  relation  of  the  same  to  one  or  both.  We 
fall,  therefore,  continually  into  the  circle  of  using  in  our  defini- 
tions terms  that  presuppose  that  to  be  known  which  we  atter  ipt 
to  define  or  describe. 

§  286.  Space  and  time  are  known  by  intuition  as 

They  are 

known  as  the  the  necessary  conditions  of  the  existence  and  the  con- 
conditions   of  . 
their    limited   ception  oi  all  obiects  and  events.     Ji-very  object  and 

correlate?.  .    . 

event,  as  has  been  already  explained,  has  properties 
or  attributes  which  imply  the  existence  of  these  entities.  In 
knowing  that  these  objects  exist,  we  know  that  time  and  space 
exist  as  their  actual  conditions.  In  conceiving  of  these  objects  or 
events  as  real  or  possible,  we  must  conceive  of  them  as  related 
to  space  and  time,  and,  of  course,  must  recognize  time  and  space 
as  their  logical  conditions. 

While,  then,  it  is  true  that  we  can  neither  generalize  nor  define 
time  and  space,  because  the  very  attributes  which  we  must 
employ  imply  both,  it  is  true,  on  the  other  hand,  that  we  cannot 


§  287.       MATHEMATICAL  RELATIONS :     TIME  AND  SPACE.  477 

generalize  or  define  any  object  whatever  without  recognizing 
both,  and,  therefore,  time  and  space  must  enter  as  the  material 
into  all  our  concepts.  Again  : 

Though  time  and  space  cannot  be  defined  or  conceived  by  the 
relations  of  objects  and  events  which  imply  time  and  space,  yet, 
on  the  other  hand,  as  the  correlates  of  all  such  objects,  they  can 
be  explained  to  the  mind  by  means  of  the  limited  relations  which 
imply  their  real  existence.  So  far  is  it  from  being  true  that,  be- 
cause space  and  time  are  known  by  intuition,  they  are  known  out 
of  relation  to  limited  objects  and  events;  that  rather  it  is 
only  possible  to  know  them  by  means  of  such  relations.  On 
the  other  hand,  they  are  only  known  as  implied  in  the  relations 
which  are  called  collectively  the  extension  and  duration  of  such 
concrete  realities ;  on  the  other,  they  cannot  be  generalized  nor 
defined  by  means  of  any  such  relations,  because  all  imply  their 
existence. 

It  has  already,  §  247  (5),  been  asserted  that  the  distinct  recog- 
nition of  these  correlates,  is,  as  it  were,  the  fifth  or  last  stage  of  the 
mind's  attainment  in  cognition ;  which  is  reached  only  by  the  few 
who  are  trained  to  habits  of  speculative  analysis  and  discrimina- 
tion. If  this  is  so,  then  it  is  obvious  that  the  number  of  thinkers 
is  very  small  who  have  any  occasion  to  ask  the  question,  whether 
space  and  time  can  be  defined,  or  whether  they  are  known  out 
of  relation  to  or  by  means  of  their  relations  to  the  concrete. 
But  the  persons  who  have  occasion  to  ask  these  questions  can 
certainly  comprehend  that  the  very  relations  which  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  used  to  define  time  and  space,  because  they  imply  them, 
may,  for  this  very  reason,  be  the  only  medium  of  bringing  them 
before  the  mind  for  the  uses  of  thought. 

§  287.   What  then,  are  space  and  time  ?    Are  they 

j    .  , . , .  ^     What  are  space 

substances,  qualities,  or   relations?     Or,  are   they  the  and  time?  con- 
forms  or  subjective  conditions  of  knowledge  by  sense  or 
consciousness?     Or  is  it  impossible  to  ascertain  what  they  are? 
These  questions  will  force  themselves  upon  the  attention  of  a 
few  ;  and  they  require  an  answer. 

Are  they  substances?  That  they  are  material  things  with 
sensible  qualities  will  scarcely  be  imagined  or  contended  by  any 
one.  No  one  would  honestly  believe  or  seriously  urge  that  they 
can  be  heard,  or  smelled,  or  seen,  or  tasted,  or  touched.  Space 


478  THE    HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  287. 

and  time  are  not  perceived  in  such  ways  or  by  such  means, 
and  hence  cannot  be  classed  with  material  substances.  Nor  are 
they  spiritual  beings.  They  have  none  of  the  properties  of 
spirits.  They  cannot  think,  or  feel,  or  will.  Nor  can  they  be 
apprehended  by  consciousness  in  the  special  sense  of  the  term. 
Neither  time  nor  space  is  a  spiritual  substance. 

They  are  not  qualities  or  properties  of  spirit  or  matter.  Dr. 
Samuel  Clark  maintained  that  space  and  time  are  attributes  or 
modes,  and  that  inasmuch  as  both  are  infinite,  there  must 
be  an  Infinite  Being  to  which  they  belong.  James  Mill,  in  his 
Analysis  of  the  Human  Mind,  chap.  xiv.  asserts  that  they  are 
simply  abstract  terms  which  stand  for  collective  conceptions  of 
those  attributes  of  extension  and  duration,  which  belong  to 
individual  beings  and  acts.  But  it  needs  no  further  discussion  to 
prove  that  they  are  and  can  be  neither.  Nor  are  they  simply 
relations,  as  Leibnitz  maintained.  This  philosopher  defined  space 
as  an  order  of  co-existence/  and  time  as  'an  order  of  succession.' 
(Third  letter  to  Dr.  S.  Clark,  §  4,  ed.  Erd.,p.  752.)  Using  exten- 
sion as  its  equivalent,  he  defines  space  as  the  order  of  possible 
co-existences ;  and  time  as  the  order  of  inconstant  possibilities. 
(Reply  to  Bayle,  ed.  Erd.,p.  189.)  Calderwood  defines  time  as  "  a 
certain  correlation  of  existences,"  and  distinguishes  his  own  view 
from  that  of  Hamilton,  who  calls  it  "  the  image  or  concept  of  a 
certain  correlation  of  existences."  (The  Phil,  of  the  Infinite,  2d 
ed.,  c.  v.) 

It  is  evident  from  what  has  been  said  already,  that  space  and 
time  are  neither  relations  nor  correlations,  but  correlates  to  beings 
and  events.  Extension  and  duration  are  the  relations  or  correla- 
tions in  question  ;  but  these  involve  space  and  time  as  realities. 

Again :  Space  and  time  are  not  forms  of  intuition  [i.  e.,  presentation]  in  the 
gense  suggested  by  Kant,  that  is,  not  subjective  forms  only.  This  philosopher  taught 
uhat  if  we  distinguish  the  matter  apprehended  by  perception  and  consciousness 
from  the  forms  of  this  matter,  then  space  is  the  form  of  sense-perception  or  ex- 
ternal intuition,  and  time  is  the  form  of  consciousness.  There  is  a  sense  in  which 
this  doctrine  is  true.  Extension  is  the  form  of  material  objects  in  the  sense 
that  all  such  objects  are  perceived  as  extended,  and  none  can  be  apprehended 
except  under  the  form  or  condition  of  being  an  extended  object.  When  all  the 
matter  which  is  given  in  the  various  sensible  qualities  is  thought  away,  the  rela- 
tions of  extension  remain.  The  same  is  true  of  the  matter  furnished  in  conscious- 
ness as  distinguished  from  its  relations  of  duration. 

But  the  doctrine  as  further  expounded  by  Kant  is  open  to  two  exceptions.     First: 


§288.       MATHEMATICAL  RELATIONS :    TIME  ANIX  SPACE.  479 

He  fails  to  distinguish  between  extension  and  duration  as  relations,  and  the 
correlates  space  and  time  which  they  involve.  He  does  not  notice  that  these  very 
relations,  after  or  under  which  all  objects  and  their  concepts  are  and  must  be 
formed,  do  in  their  very  nature  involve  the  intuitive  knowledge  of  space  and 
time  as  realities,  and  that  to  suppose  that  they  are  only  forms  is  to  exclude  and 
eliminate  that  which  is  given  and  affirmed  by  their  very  nature.  Second:  The 
suggestion  or  the  assumption  that  they  depend  on  the  subjective  constitution  of 
the  human  intellect  is  unwarranted  by  positive  evidence  and  is  contradicted  by 
the  testimony  of  the  intellect  itself.  The  supposition  that  intellects  of  another 
order  might  possibly  exist,  which  could  know  objects  without  the  relation  of  space 
and  time,  is  without  proof  and  against  proof  (g  259.)  In  other  words,  that  which 
makes  it  possible  and  necessary  for  extension  and  duration  to  be  the  forms  of 
perception  and  consciousness  is  the  fact  that  the  objects  of  these  two  modes  of 
knowledge  are  in  reality  related  to  the  entities  space  and  time. 

§  288.  St.  Augustine  is  reported  to  have  said — "  What  Conclusion. 
is  time?  If  not  asked,  I  know,  but  attempting  to 
explain,  I  know  not."  This,  in  one  view,  is  correct.  We  know 
by  intuition  that  time  and  space  exist,  but  to  explain  or  define 
what  they  are,  is  not  so  easy.  It  may  relieve  our  embar- 
rassment in  part  to  explain  why  we  cannot  answer  the  question 
in  one  sense,  and  why  we  can  in  another.  If,  in  answering  the 
question  what,  it  is  expected  or  required  that  we  should  class 
them  with  objects  limited  by  space  or  time,  or  objects  having 
material  or  spiritual  properties,  or  objects  holding  relations  to 
space  and  time,  in  other  words,  that  we  should  class  them  with 
beings,  qualities,  or  relations,  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  these 
terms,  then  it  is  obvious  that  we  cannot  answer  this  question  at 
all.  We  cannot  say  what  they  are.  But  we  know  that  they 
exist,  i.  e.,  there  exist  realities  which  answer  to  the  terms.  Their 
existence  is  implied  in  the  existence  of  every  limited  object  and 
property,  because  every  such  object  and  property  is  related  to 
them.  We  cannot  believe  or  know  that  the  one  exists  without 
knowing  that  the  other  exists  also.  But  can  we  in  any  sense  of 
the  word,  what,  explain  the  nature  of  that  which  we  know  exists  ? 
We  can,  so  far  as  to  say  that  they  are  entities  to  which  all  these 
limited  objects  are  related,  and  which  are,  therefore,  correlates  to 
them.  If  they  are  correlates  to  all  limited  objects,  they  are 
known  and  described  by  their  relations  to  them.  By  their  very 
nature  they  are  entities  to  which  these  objects  bear  these  rela- 
tions, and  by  their  relations  to  these  objects  they  are^  known  and 
thought  of  They  cannot  be  said  to  be  defined  in  the  sense  in 


480  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §289. 

which  limited  objects  are  defined,  but  they  can  be  suggested  or 
described  to  the  mind  as  the  necessary  correlates  of  limited  ex- 
istences, by  means  of  their  relations  to  them. 

These  relations  to  both  space  and  time  are  represented  in 
thought  and  language  by  means  of  motion,  as  has  already  been 
explained,  and  hence  it  follows  that  space  and  time  are  set  forth 
in  thought  and  language  by  the  same  medium. 

We  conclude  that  in  whatever  sense  space  and  time  are  uncon- 
ditioned, infinite,  and  absolute,  they  are  not  so  in  any  such  sense 
as  to  exclude  the  possibility  of  being  related  to  the  finite.  By 
means  of  these  relations  they  can  be  both  conceived  and  known. 
(§342.) 


CHAPTER  V. 

CAUSATION   AND   THE   RELATION   OF   CAUSALITY. 

§  289.  From  the  formal  and  mathematical  intui- 

Causation  as  a 

law,  and  as  a  tions  we  come  to  those  which  are  real,  i.  e.,  which  are 
required  to  explain  the  attributes  which  are  respect- 
ively distinctive  of  material  and  spiritual  beings.  Into  these  real 
relations  all  the  actually  existing  properties  and  powers  of  matter 
and  spirit  are  resolved.  Under  the  laws  which  regulate  their 
operation,  the  effects  and  purposes  that  describe  the  universe  are 
accomplished.  We  shall  consider  first,  the  relation  of  causality  or 
causation. 

The  relation  of  causality  is  sometimes  called  the  Law,  at 
other  times  the  Principle  of  causality,  causation,  or  cause  and 
effect.  Causation  as  a  law  is  viewed  as  a  relation  actually 
prevailing  in  or  ruling  over  the  finite  universe  of  physical  and 
spiritual  being.  Causation  as  a  principle  is  placed  first  or  highest 
with  reference  to  the  other  concepts  or  truths  which  depend  upon 
or  are  derived  from  it — either  relatively  or  absolutely,  according 
as  the  truth  is  received  as  original  or  derived.  The  first  of  these 
appellations  is  objective  and  real,  and  indicates  its  universal  preva- 
lence amon^objects  actually  existing.  The  other  is  subjective  and 
logical,  and  designates  the  place  which  the  relation  or  the  proposi- 


§  290.        CAUSATION  AND  THE  RELATION  OF  CAUSALITY.  481 

tion  in  which  it  is  expressed  holds  in  the  systematic  arrangement 
of  our  knowledge,  (cf.  §  246). 

Causation  as  a  law  may  be  stated  thus :  Every  finite  event  is 
a  caused  event,  or,  more  briefly,  is  an  effect.  Causation,  as  a 
principle,  may  be  thus  expressed :  Every  finite  event  may  be  ac- 
counted for  by  referring  it  to  a  cause  as  the  ground  or  reason  of 
its  existence. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  observe,  that  the  proposition,  every 
effect  must  have  a  cause,  is  purely  and  simply  identical.  It  is 
mcro  tautology,  expanding  in  the  predicate  what  had  been  im- 
plied in  the  subject.  The  term  effect,  in  its  import,  implies  a 
cause  by  a  logical  necessity.  To  say  an  effect  must  be  caused,  is 
as  reasonable  as  to  say,  a  caused  event  is  caused,  or,  xy  =  x  X  y. 

§  290.  Causation,  both  as  law  and  principle,  is  E^^  defined 
affirmed  of  events.  But  what  is  an  event  f  An  event 
is  something  which  is  known  to  be,  which  was  not ;  or  which 
begins  to  be  or  to  occur.  Events  are,  therefore,  finite,  i.  e., 
limited  by  relations  of  space  or  time.  Their  existence  or  occur- 
rence implies  change.  Something  is  here  and  now  which  was 
not.  Ot  these  changes  it  is  affirmed  that  they  were  caused. 

In  the  material  world,  events  are  changes  of  place  or  relative 
position,  motions  in  space,  changes  of  form,  changes  of  properties 
in  respect  to  existence  or  intensity.  They  are  often  called  pheno- 
mena, i.  e.,  manifestations  to  the  senses  or  the  consciousness  of 
some  power  or  agency. 

Events  or  phenomena  are  more  numerous  and  conspicuous  in 
the  vegetable  and  animal  sphere.  There  is  growth,  changa  of  form 
and  of  structure,  the  manifestation  of  new  colors,  odors,  and 
above  all,  there  is  constant  motion.  In  the  mental  or  spiritual 
sphere,  new  thoughts,  new  feelings,  new  purposes,  pass  before  the 
observant  eye  of  consciousness  faster  than  they  can  be  accounted 
for.  But  besides  phenomena  of  these  classes  in  the  world  of  life, 
which  appear  in  acts,  states,  01-  qualities,  more  or  less  lasting, 
there  are  still  others  in  the  existence  and  production  of  new  and 
separate  beings,  material  and  spiritual. 

Besides  these,  there  are  conditions  or  states  more  or  less  per- 
manent which  require  to  be  accounted  for,  such  as  the  equilibria 
of  forces,  or  pressure,  as  illustrated  in  the  action  of  gravitation 
or  electricity,  the  tendencies  of  fluids  at  rest  or  in  motion.     All 
2i 


482  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  291. 

these,  so  far  as  tne  law  of  causation  is  concerned,  coine  under 
the  class  of  events  or  phenomena. 

Many  of  these  so-called  events  and  phenomena  are  a  combina- 
tion of  several,  and  made  up  of  many  units.  But  whether  simple 
or  complex,  each  one  of  them  is  caused.  If  the  question  be  raised, 
What  is  a  single  •  event,  or  the  simplest  phenomenon  ?  we  have 
only  to  reply,  that  any  change,  the  least  extensive  in  space,  or  the 
briefest  possible  in  time,  which  can  be  discerned  by  human  ob- 
servation, is  a  single  event. 

§  291.  Again :  we  distinguish  between  the  causes 

Cause  distin-          a  ®.  ... 

guished  from  or  an  event  and  the  conditions  01  its  actually  pro- 
ducing the  effect.  The  stroke  of  a  hammer  is  the 
cause  of  the  fracture  of  a  stone,  of  the  flattening  of  a  leaden 
bullet,  of  the  heating  of  a  bit  of  iron.  The  conditions  of  the 
effect  would,  in  such  a  case,  be  said  to  be  the  properties  of  the 
stone,  the  bullet,  or  the  iron. 

In  any  such  case  the  effect  is  frequently  said  to  be  the  resultant 
of  the  joint  action  of  the  striking  hammer  and  the  resisting 
stone,  lead,  or  iron.  This  doctrine  is  thus  generalized  by  Mill: 
"  The  real  cause  is  the  whole  of  these  antecedents  (or  conditions), 
and  we  have,  philosophically  speaking,  no  right  to  give  the  name 
of  cause  to  one  of  them  exclusively  of  the  others."  (Zoy.,B.  iii. 
c.  v.,§  3).  To  the  same  effect,  says  Hamilton :  "  Every  effect  is 
only  produced  by  the  concurrence  of  at  least  two  causes  (and  by 
cause,  be  it  observed,  I  mean  every  thing  without  which  the 
effect  could  not  be  realized)."  (Met., Lee.  3.)  In  common  life  a 
distinction  is  made-  between  the  efficient  and  patient  cause,  the 
last  being  used  for  the  object,  i.  e.,  that  on  which  the  causal  agency 
shows  a  result,  or  upon  which  it  is  exerted.  It  is  obvious  that  that 
whose  activity  is  most  obvious  or  demonstrative,  is  called  the 
efficient.  The  patient  or  recipient  often  exhibits  no  force  or  energy, 
as,  the  cohesion  of  the  stone,  lead,  or  iron  in  the  cases  supposed. 

Sometimes  the  objects  in  their  matter  and  chief  elements  are 
said  to  be  the  same,  but  the  force  or  causal  agency  is  applied 
under  diverse  conditions  of  quantity,  time,  or  distance:  as  a 
chemical  agency  is  doubled ;  the  gravitating  force  operates  with  a 
varying  energy ;  a  wave  of  light  acts  with  twice  a  given  ra- 
pidity. These  conditions  are  called  in  scientific  language,  the  laws 
of  the  acting  of  the  forces  or  powers — the  causal  agents — of  nature. 


§  292.       CAUSATION  AND  THE  RELATION  OF  CAUSALITY.  483 

§  292.  Of  causation  both  as  a  law  and  a  principle 
we  assert  that  the  relation  is  original  and  independent,  cannot rei*flS 
Those  who  regard  it  as  secondary  and  derived  usually  SSreiTtk-n  * 
resolve  it  into  some  relation  of  time.  The  history 
of  speculation  abounds  in  such  attempts.  This  is  not  surprising. 
The  relations  of  time  pertain  to  all  objects  whatever.  If  objects 
are  connected  by  the  relation  of  causality,  the  same  objects  must 
also  be  united  to  observation  either  as  co-existent  or  as  succes- 
sive. The  most  conspicuous  advocates  of  this  disposition  of  the 
causal  relation  are  David  Hume,  Dr.  Thomas  Brown,  and  John 
Stuart  Mill. 

Hume  defines  a  cause  as  a  constantly  precedent,  and  an  effect 
as  a  constantly  subsequent  event.  The  necessity  by  which  conjoined 
objects  are  connected  as  cause  and  effect,  arises  from  their  being 
united  in  the  mind's  own  experience,  and  the  consequent  fact 
that  the  thought  or  observation  of  the  one  determines  the  mind 
to  a  lively  idea  of  the  other.  They  are  discovered  to  be  thus  re- 
lated by  the  constant  conjunction  of  the  two. 

Dr.  T.  Brown  agrees  with  Hume  that  the  relation  of  cause  and 
effect  is  nothing  more  than  the  constant  and  invariable  connec- 
tion of  two  objects  in  time, — the  one  as  antecedent  and  the  other 
as  consequent.  Brown  differs  from  Hume  in  holding  that  two 
objects  need  only  be  conjoined  in  a  single  instance  in  order  to  be 
known  as  cause  and  effect  respectively,  while  the  theory  of  Hume 
requires  that  they  must  be  frequently  conjoined  in  order  to  be 
causally  connected.  Indeed  the  interest  and  meaning  of 
Hume's  causal  connection  depends  upon  the  tendency  of  the 
mind  to  think  of  those  objects  together  which  have  been  observed 
to  be  conjoined  in  fact.  Brown  contends  that  the  only  use  of  re- 
peated observations  is  to  enable  the  mind  to  analyze  or  separate 
complex  objects  into  their  ultimate  elements;  a  single  conjunc- 
tion of  any  two  "clearly  distinguished  objects,  in  his  view,  gives 
their  causal  connection. 

"  A  cause,  therefore,  in  the  fullest  definition  which  it  philosophically  admit?, 
may  be  said  to  be,  that  which  immediately  precedes  any  change,  and  which,  ex- 
isting at  any  time  in  similar  circumstances,  has  been  always,  and  will  be  always, 
immediately  followed  by  a  similar  change.  Priority  in  the  sequence  observed, 
and  invariableness  of  antecedence  in  the  past  and  future  sequences  supposed,  are 
the  elements,  and  the  only  elements,  combined  in  the  notion  of  cause.  By  a  con- 
version of  terms,  we  obtain  a  definition  of  the  correlative  effect;  and  power,  as  I 


484  THE   HUMAN  INTELLECT.  §292. 

have  before  observed,  is  only  another  word  for  expressing  abstractly  and  briefly 
the  antecedence  itself  and  the  invariableness  of  the  relation." — T.  BUOWN,  Inquiry, 
etc.,  Part  L,Sec.  1.  Of.  Lectures,  Lee.  vii. 

The  Theory  of  Hume  and  Brown  has,  in  its  essential  features, 
been  reproduced  and  defended  by  John  Stuart  Mill.  It  is  fully 
and  fairly  stated  in  his  own  language  in  the  following  extracts 
from  his  System  of  Logic. 

"  The  law  of  causation,  the  recognition  of  which  is  the  main  pillar  of  inductive 
philosophy,  is  but  the  familiar  truth,  that  invariability  of  succession  is  found  by 
observation  to  obtain  between  every  fact  in  nature  and  some  other  fact  which  has 
preceded  it."  *  *  "  To  certain  facts,  certain  facts  always  do  and  as  we  believe 
always  will  succeed.  The  invariable  antecedent  is  termed  the  cause ;  the  invari- 
able consequent,  the  effect;  and  the  universality  of  the  law  of  causation  consists 
in  this,  that  every  consequent  is  connected  in  this  manner  with  some  particular 
antecedent,  or  set  of  antecedents.  Let  the  fact  be  what  it  may,  if  it  has  begun 
to  exist,  it  was  preceded  by  some  fact  or  facts,  with  which  it  is  invariably  con- 
nected."—B.  III.,c.  v.,§  2. 

"I  have  no  objection  to  define  a  cause,  the  assemblage  of  phenomena,  which 
occurring,  some  other  phenomenon  invariably  commences  or  has  its  origin. 
Whether  the  effect  coincides  in  point  of  time  with,  or  immediately  follows,  the 
hindmost  of  its  conditions,  is  immaterial.  At  all  events  it  does  not  precede  it; 
and  when  we  are  in  doubt  between  two  coexistent  phenomena,  which  is  cause  and 
which  effect,  we  rightly  deem  the  question  solved  if  we  can  ascertain  which  of 
them  preceded  the  other." — B.  III.,c.  v.,§  6. 

In  other  words,  causation  does  not  imply  production,  depen- 
dence, efficiency  or  force,  but  simply  uniform  succession  or  con- 
stant conjunction.  All  events  or  begun  existences  are  or  may  be 
presumed  to  be  invariably  preceded  by  certain  events,  more  or 
fewer,  in  a  set  or  assemblage,  each  one  of  which  is  as  truly  a 
cause  as  any  other. 

Against  these  views  of  Mill  and  others,  we  contend  that  the  re- 
lation of  causation  cannot  be  resolved  into  any  relations  of  Time. 
Our  reasons  are  these.  It  is  conceded  by  Mill,  that  in  some 
cases,  no  interval  of  antecedence  or  succession  can  be  discerned 
between  the  cause  and  the  effect.  To  set  aside  the  force  of  this  un- 
deniable fact,  he  contends  that  though  this  is  true,  yet  all  those 
cases  in  which  we  have  occasion  to  resort  to  the  law  of  causa- 
tion, are  cases  of  begun  existence,  in  which  the  cause  is  obviously 
before  the  effect.  He  insists  therefore  that  "practically"  his  view 
of  the  nature  of  causation  cannot  be  controverted.  This  we 
grant,  so  far  as  to  allow  that  in  most  instances  in  which  we  have 
occasion  to  discover  a  cause  or  predict  an  effect,  the  event  is  a 


$  293.        CAUSATION  AND  THE  RELATION  OF  CAUSALITY.  485 

begun  existence.  In  other  words,  practically  every  caused  exis- 
tence is  a  begun  existence,  and  every  cause  precedes  its  effect,  and 
every  effect  follows  its  cause  :  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  the  re- 
lations before  and  after  usually  attend  the  relation  of  causality. 
This  is  simply  the  truism  that  all  events,  i.  e.,  all  begun  exis- 
tences,or  phenomena,  occur  in  time;  or, stated  in  another  manner, 
that  all  finite  phenomena  are  subject  to  time-relations.  But  it  is 
one  thing  to  assert,  which  is  all  that  Mill  does  in  this  passage,  that 
we  can  determine  causes  and  effects  by  meams  of  their  constantly 
attending  relations  of  time,  and  quite  another  to  show  that  the 
two  relations  are  identical. 

That  they  are  not  identical  is  proved  by  the  fact  that, without 
the  assumption  of  the  relation  of  causation  as  distinct  and  real, 
logical  deduction  would  be  impossible.  This  has  been  shown  in 
the  analysis  of  deduction  already  given.  Induction  also  would  be 
unmeaning.  It  is  idle  to  contend  that  the  force  of  the  reasons 
and  laws  by  which  we  explain  and  predict  events  is  exhausted  by 
resolving  them  into  uniform  antecedences  and  successions  in  time. 
This  has  been  already  shown  under  Induction.  It  will  be  more 
conclusively  proved  when  we  consider  in  its  place  the  explanation 
of  Induction  given  by  Mill  in  his  own  theory  of  the  nature  of  the 
causal  relation,  §  294.  This  explanation  not  only  fails  to  satisfy 
the  mind  in  respect  to  induction,  but  it  reacts  against  his  under- 
lying and  assumed  construction  of  the  causal  relation.  But  aside 
from  these  considerations,  we  contend  that  the  very  statement  of 
the  proposition  is  its  own  sufficient  refutation.  The  human  mind 
clearly  distinguishes  the  relations  of  time  from  the  relations  of 
causality  and  production.  The  intelligent  and  universal  use  of 
the  whole  vocabulary  of  terms  appropriate  to  each  of  these 
classes  of  relations  is  but  the  constant  attestation  that  this  dis. 
tinction  is  made  universally  and  necessarily  by  the  mind;  in 
other  wordc,  that  causation  cannot  be  resolved  into  any  relation 
of  time. 

§  293.  The  relation  of  causality  being  established, 
we  assert  that  the  mind  intuitively  believes  that  every  Of  causality  h£ 
event    is    caused,    i.   e.,  is   produced   by   the  action   d"nt.vey 
of  some  agent  or  agents,  which,  with  respect  to  the  effect,   are 
called  its  cause  or  its  causes. 

The  reasons  for  this  view  are  the  following  : — 


486  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  293. 

(a)  We  explain  the  occurrence  of  events  in  common  life,  on 
the  assumption  of  this  truth.  To  explain  phenomena  is  to  refer 
to  the  beings  or  agencies  which  have  occasioned  them.  When 
these  producing  agents  are  discovered,  and  the  modes  and  laws 
of  their  action  are  referred  to  or  unfolded,  the  process  of  ex 
planation  is  complete. 

(6)  When  an  event  has  occurred  ,which  is  not  yet  accounted 
for,  and  the  mind  is  aroused  to  the  effort  to  solve  or  explain  its 
occurrence,  it  believes  just  as  firmly  that  it  can  be  accounted 
for  in  the  way  described,  as  if  the  explanation  had  been  in  fact 
attained.  It  is  as  confident  before  as  after  the  cause  has  been 
determined,  that  its  occurrence  depends  upon  some  cause  or 
causes.  Upon  this  confidence  rest  all  the  inquiries  and  experi- 
ments which  it  sets  on  foot. 

(c)  The  mind  not  only  explains  the  past,  but  it  relies  upon  the 
future,  on  the  ground  of  its  faith  in  causation.     It  provides  for 
or  secures  future  results  by  availing  itself  of  the  causes  which  it 
knows  will  produce  them.     It  employs  these  agents  in  all  its 
plans  and  experiments  with  entire  certainty  of  the  results  which 
they  will  effect.     It  predicts  these  results  with  confidence  so  soon 
as  it  is  certain  of  all  the  causes  which  are  or  may  be  put  into 
action. 

(d)  In  these    explanations    and    experiments   the    mind    is 
impelled   by  a   special   emotion,  always   present   and   powerful. 
Curiosity   is   more   than    an   interest    and    desire  to   know   an 
event   as   a  fact :    it   impels   to    the   knowledge  of   its    causes 
and    laws,   of   its    origin    and    growth.      The   existence    of   a 
strong  and  apparently  original  emotional   capacity  of  this  sort 
confirms  the  view  that  the  relation  itself  is  original  as  a  law  of 
existence,  and  that  the  belief  in  it  is  a  fundamental  principle  of 
the  mind's  knowledge. 

What  the  mind  unconsciously  assumes  to  be  true  in  practical 
life,  it  distinctly  and  consciously  applies  in  all  the  methods  and 
processes  of  thought  and  of  science.  We  have  seen  that  deduc- 
tive reasoning  has  no  meaning  unless  the  relation  of  causality  is 
assumed,  and  that  induction  in  its  researches  after  the  forces  and 
laws  of  matter  and  of  spirit,  makes  the  same  assumption. 
Science,  in  all  its  processes,  investigates  the  properties,  the 
powers,  the  forces,  the  attributes,  and  the  laws,  of  all  existing 


§  294.        CAUSATION  AND  THE  RELATION  OF  CAUSALITY.  487 

objects.  But  properties,  powers,  forces,  and  attributes  are  all  of 
them  terms  which  directly  assert  or  indirectly  imply  that  there 
is  a  causal  energy  or  activity  in  these  objects.  The  laws  of 
matter  and  of  spirit  have  no  import,  and  can  admit  no  applica- 
tion, except  as  causal  agencies  are  affirmed  which  these  laws 
measure  or  formulate.  Except  as  the  causal  relation  is  believed 
and  assumed,  scientific  knowledge  can  have  no  import,  and  sci- 
entific inquiries  would  be  meaningless  and  impossible. 

Moreover :  the  belief  in  the  relation  of  causality  is  wrought 
into  and  expressed  by  the  structure  of  language.  There  are 
words  which  express  causal  activity,  words  which  express  the  re- 
ception of  such  activity,  and  words  which  express  the  changes 
which  are  wrought  in  objects  by  means  of  causal  activity.  The 
grammar  of  every  language  furnishes  proof  of  this,  both  in  its 
etymology  and  its  syntax. 

These  considerations  prove  decisively  that  our  belief  in  causation 
is  an  intuitive  principle  which  meets  all  the  criteria  of  universal- 
ity,  necessity,  and  originality. 

§  294.     This  opinion  is  disputed  bv  manv.      Vari-  Counter  thpo- 

,          .        ,  ,  -,       .       -,  n         ries.     The   be- 

ous  counter  theories  have  been  devised  to  account  lor  lief          not 

7  ji  i        f-       ,1  acquired       by 

the  universal  or,  as  the  case  may  be,  for  the  very  gene-  induction    or 
ral  application   of  causation.       The    first   of   these 
counter  theories  which  we  notice  is,  that  the  belief  in  the  univer- 
sality  of  causation   is,  like  other  general  beliefs,  acquired  by- 
induction.     This  is  the  doctrine  of  J.  S.  Mill. 

"  With  respect  to  the  general  law  of  causation  it  does  appear  that  there  must 
have  been  a  time  when  the  universal  prevalence  of  that  law  throughout  nature 
could  not  have  been  affirmed  in  the  same  confident  and  unqualified  manner  as  at 
present.  There  was  a  time  when  many  of  the  phenomena  of  nature  must  have 
appeared  altogether  capricious  and  irregular,  not  governed  by  any  laws,  nor 
steadily  consequent  upon  any  causes."  *  *  "The  truth  is,  as  M.  Comte  has  well 
pointed  out,  that  (although  the  generalizing  propensity  must  have  prompted 
mankind  from  almost  the  beginning  of  their  experience  to  ascribe  all  events  to 
some  cause  more  or  less  mysterious)  the  conviction  that  phenomena  have  invari 
able  laws,  and  follow  with  regularity  certain  antecedent  phenomena,  was  only 
acquired  gradually ;  and  extended  itself  as  knowledge  advanced,  from  one  order 
of  phenomena  to  another,  beginning  with  those  whose  laws  are  most  accessible  to 
observation." — B.  III.,c.  xxi.,$  3. 

"I  apprehend  that  the  considerations  which  give,  at  the  present  day,  to  the 
proof  of  the  law  of  the  uniformity  of  succession,  as  true  of  all  phenomena  with- 
out exception,  this  character  of  completeness  and  conclusiveness,  are  the  follow- 
ing :  First,  that  we  now  know  it  directly  to  be  true  of  far  the  greater  number  of 


488  THE  HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  294. 

phenomena  ;  that  there  are  none  of  which  we  know  it  not  to  be  true,  the  utmost 
rhat  can  be  said  being  that  of  some  we  cannot  positively,  from  direct  evidence, 
affirm  its  truth,"  etc.,  etc.  "  Besides  this  first  class  of  considerations  there  is  a 
second,  which  still  further  corroborates  the  conclusion,  and  from  the  recognition  of 
which  the  complete  establishment  of  the  universal  law  may  reasonably  be  dated." 
"  When  every  phenomenon  that  we  know  sufficiently  well  to  be  able  to  answer 
the  question,  had  a  cause  on  which  it  was  invariably  consequent,  it  was  more  ra- 
tional to  suppose  that  our  inability  to  assign  the  causes  of  other  phenomena  arose 
from  our  ignorance,  than  that  there  were  phenomena  which  were  uncaused,  and 
which  happened  accidentally  to  be  exactly  those  which  we  had  hitherto  had  no  suffi- 
cient opportunity  of  studying.  It  must,  at  the  same  time,  be  remarked,  that  the 
reasons  for  this  reliance  do  not  hold  in  circumstances  unknown  to  us,  and  beyond 
the  possible  range  of  our  experience.  In  distant  parts  of  the  stellar  regions, 
where  the  phenomena  may  be  entirely  unlike  those  with  which  we  are  acquainted, 
It  would  be  folly  to  affirm  confidently  that  this  general  law  prevails,  any  more 
than  those  special  ones  which  we  have  found  to  hold  universally  on  our  own  planet. 
The  uniformity  in  the  succession  of  events,  otherwise  called  the  law  of  causation, 
must  be  received  not  as  a  law  of  the  universe,  but  of  that  portion  of  it  only  which 
is  within  the  range  of  our  means  of  sure  observation,  with  a  reasonable  degree  of 
extension  to  adjacent  cases.  To  extend  it  further  is  to  make  a  supposition  without 
evidence,  and  to  which,  in  the  absence  of  any  good  ground  from  experience  for  esti- 
mating its  degree  of  probability,  it  would  be  ridiculous  to  affect  to  assign  it." — 
B.  III.,o.xxi.,g§4,  5. 

Closely  allied  to  this  is  the  doctrine  of  Hume :  that  the  belief  is 
the  result  of  association.  Indeed,  Mill  blends  the  two  in  one,  inas- 
much as  he  makes  induction  to  be  the  result  of  repeated  or  insepara- 
ble associations.  This  doctrine  expressed  by  flume  is  as  follows : 

,  "  The  first  time  a  man  saw  the  communication  of  motion  by  impulse,  as  by  the 
shock  of  two  billiard-balls,  he  could  not  pronounce  that  the  one  event  was  con- 
nected, but  only  that  it  was  conjoined  with  the  other.  After  he  has  observed 
several  instances  of  this  nature,  he  then  pronounces  them  to  be  connec'ed.  Wlat 
alteration  has  happened  to  give  rise  to  this  new  idea  of  connection  f  Nothing  but 
that  he  now  feels  these  events  to  be  connected  in  his  imagination,  and  can  readily  fore- 
tell the  existence  of  one  from  the  appearance  of  the  other. — Inquiry,  etc.,Lec.  vii.,p.  2« 
"  Necessity  is  something  that  exists  in  the  mind,  not  in  objects ;  nor  is  it  possi- 
ble for  us  ever  to  form  the  most  distant  idea  of  it  considered  as  a  quality  in 
bodies.  Either  we  have  no  idea  of  necessity,  or  necessity  is  nothing  but  that  de- 
termination of  the  thought  to  pass  from  causes  to  effects,  and  from  effects  to 
causes,  according  to  their  experienced  union.  'A  cause  is  an  object  precedent 
and  contiguous  to  another,  and  so  united  with  it  that  the  idea  of  the  one  deter- 
mines the  mind  to  form  the  idea  of  the  other,  and  the  impression  of  the  one  t« 
form  a  more  lively  idea  of  the  other.' " — Human  Nature,  B.  I.,  Lee.  xiv. 

(1.)  The  advocates  of  each  of  these  theories  overlook  the  real 
question  at  issue.  The  belief  to  be  explained  or  accounted  for,  is, 
that  every  event  has  a  cause.  The  belief  which  the  advocates  of 
this  theory  seek  to  account  for,  is  the  belief  that  to  each  particu- 


§  294.       CAUSATION  AND  THE  RELATION  OF  CAUSALITY.  489 

lar  event  or  class  of  events,  some  definite  cause  has  been  or  may 
be  actually  assigned.  That  this  last  can  only  be  the  product  of 
experience  is  obvious.  That  this  is  the  belief  in  support  of  which 
they  adduce  illustrations  and  arguments  is  evident  from  the  pas- 
sages which  we  have  quoted  from  Hume  and  Mill.  That  this  is 
not  the  belief  which  is  in  question,  needs  no  illustration  or  argu- 
ment. 

(2.)  No  simple  experience  of  actual  events  can  establish  the 
application  of  its  results  any  further  than  the  range  of  actual 
events  of  which  we  have  had  this  experience.  But  in  both  General- 
ization and  Induction,  we  go  far  beyond  our  actual  experience. 
When,  from  the  observation  of  a  few  objects  or  a  few  events,  we 
generalize  a  concept  or  a  law  which  ye  apply  to  objects  or  events 
more  or  less  like  them,  we  use  the  belief  that  what  we  have  observed 
will  prove  true  of  what  we  have  not  observed.  Whether  what 
we  have  observed  are  called  simple  uniformities  of  antecedence 
and  succession,  or  uniformities  of  causation,  makes  no  difference 
with  the  nature  of  the  act  by  which  we  pass  from  the  known  to 
the  unknown. 

Mill  himself  most  pertinently  observes  :  "We  believe  that  fire 
will  burn  to-morrow  because  it  burned  to-day  and  yesterday ;  but 
we  believe  on  precisely  the  same  grounds  that  it  burned  before 
we  were  born,  and  that  it  burns  this  very  day  in  Cochin-China. 
It  is  not  from  the  past  to  the  future  [only  or  as  such]  as  pasfc  or 
future,  that  we  infer,  but  from  the  known  to  the  unknown  ;  from 
facts  observed  to  facts  unobserved ;  from  what  we  have  per- 
ceived, or  been  directly  conscious  of,  to  what  has  not  come  within 
our  experience." 

He  also  admits,  in  the  passages  already  quoted,  that  we  do  not 
limit  ourselves  to  experience.  In  asking  why,  when  we  cannot 
assign  a  definite  cause  for  an  event,  we  yet  believe  it  to  be  caused, 
he  says  it  is  "  more  rational  to  suppose  that  our  inability  to  assign 
the  causes  of  other  phenomena  arose  from  our  ignorance  than 
that  there  were  phenomena  which  were  uncaused."  While  then 
he  insists  that  we  have  no  warrant  from  experience  in  applying 
the  results  of  experience  "  to  circumstances  unknown  to  us  and 
beyond  the  possible  range  of  our  experience,"  and  contends  that 
"  the  law  of  causation  must  be  received  not  as  a  law  of  the  uni- 
verse, but  of  that  portion  of  it  only  which  is  within  the  range  of 

21* 


490  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  294 

our  means  of  observation,"  he  is  careful  to  subjoin  "  with  a  rea- 
sonable degree  of  extension  to  adjacent  cases."  It  would  be  difficult 
to  give  a  meaning  to  the  phrases  "  it  is  more  rational  to  suppose" 
and  "  with  a  reasonable  extension  to  adjacent  cases"  without  finding 
in  them  a  real,  though  reluctant  homage  to  the  intuition,  "  Every 
event  must  be  caused." 

(3.)  Induction  assumes  this  belief  as  already  present  to  or 
ready  to  be  applied  by  the  mind.  Mill  concedes  that  Induction 
itself  has  axioms.  He  says,  "  whatever  be  the  best  way  of  ex- 
pressing it,  the  proposition  that  the  course  of  nature  is  uniform,  is 
the  fundamental  principle,  or  general  axiom  of  Induction."  The 
proposition  that  "the  course  of  nature  is  imiform"iniist  mean  that 
the  unknown  uniformities  of  succession  or  causation  correspond 
to  those  which  are  known.  If  this  is  a  general  axiom  or  funda- 
mental principle  of  Induction,  it  would  seem  that  it  cannot  be 
gained  or  derived  by  means  of  Induction.  And  yet  Mill  contends 
that  the  axiom  which  is  necessarily  assumed  to  give  meaning  and 
r&ility  to  the  process  of  Induction  is  acquired  by  means  of  the  pro- 
cess to -which  it  is  a  necessary  pre-condition. 

(4.)  The  resolution  of  this  belief  into  tenacious  or  inseparable 
associations,  or  as  Hume  more  bluntly  expresses  it,  into  "  custom 
or  habit"  is  more  palpably  untenable  than  the  other  theory  or  form 
of  this  theory. 

The  resolution  of  the  objective  reality  of  this  connection  into  a  mere  subjective 
association  of  the  two  terms  fails  to  satisfy  the  mind,  because  it  does  not  account 
for  what  is  believed.  How  the  mind  comes  to  think  of  the  one  when  the  other 
is  observed  or  thought  of,  is  a  very  different  question  from  this,  l  how  or  by  what 
relation  does  the  mind  believe  that  the  objects  thus  thought  of  together,  are  con- 
nected in  fact?' 

It  is  a  mere  truism  to  say  that  objects  observed  or 
thought  of  together  will  be  conjoined  by  association.  The 
fact  that  the  mind  is  constantly  determined  to  one  thought 
by  the  presence  of  another,  is  very  different  from  the  fact  that 
the  two  things  thought  of,  are  necessarily  determined  the  one  by 
the  other.  If  the  two  are  viewed  simply  as  psychological  experi- 
ences, even  the  subjective  law  by  which  the  objects  concerned 
are  presented  to  the  mind  in  constant  conjunction,  is  clearly  dif- 
ferent from  the  subjective  belief  that  the  objects  so  presented 
are  united  causally. 

The  philosopher  who  directly,  like  Hume,  or  indirectly,  likj 


§  295.       CAUSATION  AND  THE  RELATION  OF  CAUSALITY.  491 

Mill,  resolves  the  principle  of  causality  into  the  law  of  association, 
complicates  rather  than  simplifies  the  problem.  For  he  imposes 
upon  himself  the  obligation  to  show  that  the  objective  world 
of  fact  corresponds  to  the  subjective  world  of  ideas.  This  he  must 
show  by  deduction,  induction  or  intuition:  but  deduction  and 
induction  both  rest  upon  intuition  ;  consequently  even  the  theory 
which  attempts  to  dispense  with  intuition  must  in  the  final  analy- 
sis rest  upon  it,  in  one  form  or  another,  as  the  ultimate  arbiter. 
§  295.  The  two  next  theories  resolve  the  principle 

,.         .          ,7        T  ..  ,.  .  .1       Not  resolvable 

of  causality  into  the  observations  oj  experience,  ascrib-  into   outward 

.  n   .-i  i  n     or  inner  expe- 

ino-  it  to  our  sense-perceptions  01  the  phenomena  01    nence,  or  both. 

n  ji  -i          Locke   and  De 

matter,  or  to  our  conscious  experience  01  the  phe- 


nomena  of  the  soul,  or,  again,  to  both  of  these  con- 
jointly. 

Locke  seems  to  advocate,  in  different  passages  of  his  Essay, 
every  one  of  these  theories.  The  following  passages  may  be 
fairly  taken  to  represent  each  of  the  three  :  — 


"  In  the  notice  that  our  senses  take  of  the  constant  vicissitude  of  things,  we 
cannot  but  observe  that  several  particulars,  both  qualities  and  substances,  begin 
to  exist ;  and  that  they  receive  this  their  existence  from  the  due  application  and 
operation  of  some  other  being.  From  this  observation  we  get  our  ideas  of  cause 
and  effect.  That  which  produces  any  simple  or  complex  idea,  we  denote  by  the 
general  name,  cause,  and  that  which  is  produced,  effect.  Thus  finding  in  that 
substance  which  we  call  wax,  fluidity,  which  is  a  simple  idea  that  was  not  in 
it  before,  is  constantly  produced  by  the  application  of  a  certain  degree  of  heat, 
we  call  the  simple  idea  of  heat  in  relation  to  fluidity  in  wax,  the  cause  of  it,  and 
fluidity,  the  effect."— Essay,  B.  II.,  c.  xxvi.,$  1. 

"  A  body  at  rest  affords  us  no  idea  of  any  active  power  to  move ;  before  it  ia 
set  in  motion  itself,  that  motion  is  rather  a  passion  than  an  action  in  it.  For 
when  the  ball  obeys  the  stroke  of  a  billiard-stick,  it  is  not  any  action  of  the  ball, 
but  bare  passion." 

"  The  idea  of  the  beginning  of  motion,  we  have  only  from  reflection  on  what 
passes  in  ourselves,  where  we  find  by  experience,  that  barely  by  willing  it,  barely 
a  thought  of  the  mind,  we  can  move  the  parts  of  our  bodies  which  were  before  at 
rest.  So  that  it  seems  to  me,  we  have  from  the  observation  of  the  operation  of 
bodies  by  our  senses,  but  a  very  imperfect,  obscure  idea  of  active  power,  since 
they  afford  not  any  idea  in  themselves  of  the  power  to  begin  any  action,  either 
motion  or  thought.  But  if  from  the  impulse  bodies  are  observed  to  make  ono 
upon  another,  any  one  thinks  he  has  a  clear  idea  of  power,  it  serves  as  well  to 
my  purpose,  Sensation  being  one  of  those  ways  whereby  the  mind  comes  by  its 
ideas ;  only  I  thought  it  worth  while  to  consider  here  by  the  way,  whether  the 
mind  doth  not  receive  its  idea  of  active  power  clearer  from  reflection  on  its  own 
operations,  than  it  does  from  any  external  sensation."  B.  II.,  o.  xxi.,g  4. 


THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  295. 

Locke's  view  has  been  understood  to  be,  that  by  simple  obser- 
vation and  experience  of  material  or  spiritual  events,  wo  know 
that  they  are  connected  as  causes  and  effects,  and  that  on  the 
ground  of  the  experience  thus  given  in  sense  and  consciousness, 
we  believe,  conclude,  or  infer,  that  all  events  are  so  connected. 
To  the  theory  as  thus  interpreted  the  reply  is  decisive :  First, 
that  simple  experience  of  the  known  can  of  itself  furnish  no 
warrant  for  a  belief  concerning  the  unknown,  unless  we  apply 
or  assume  some  a  priori  principle  or  original  intuition;  Second, 
sense-perception  and  consciousness  are  usually  so  denned  as  to 
include  the  discernment  of  the  relations  of  space  and  time.  But 
the  relations  of  space  and  time  are  a  priori,  and  are  discerned 
by  intuition.  It  cannot  then  be  urged  that  sense  and  conscious- 
ness as  forms  or  acts  of  simple  experience,  are  the  source  or 
sources  of  our  belief  of  causation.  Experience  is  a  posteriori,  and 
excludes  any  a  priori  element. 

Eoyer  Collard  and  Maine  de  Biran,  two  distinguished  philoso- 
phers of  the  modern  French  school,  have  each  introduced  im- 
portant modifications  of  the  theory  of  Locke. 

Royer  Collard,  Fragmens  de  Legons  ( (Eavres  de  T.  Reid,  T. 
iv.,p.  296),  contends  that  our  experience  of  psychical  phenomena 
alone  gives  us  direct  knowledge  of  the  causal  relation,  inasmuch 
as  mental  states  are,  by  their  very  nature,  known  to  be  caused 
by  the  ego.  We  know  by  consciousness  that  we  are  causes, 
and  these  are  the  only  causes  which  we  do  know.  But  we  know 
that  every  event  is  caused,  as  a  self-evident  and  intuitive  truth. 

Maine  de  Biran,  (  (Euvres,  T.  iv.,)  expands  this  general  state- 
ment into  a  refined  theory  which  he  explains  with  great  subtlety, 
and  defends  with  equal  boldness  as  follows :  — 

The  soul,  in  all  its  higher  states  and  elements  of  states,  is  not 
receptive  but  active.  As  active,  it  is  the  originator  or  producer 
of  effects.  These  effects  are  of  two  sorts  :  those  which  are  purely 
psychical,  and  those  which  are  external  as  they  affect  the  body 
and  originate  motion.  In  those  states  which  are  purely  psychi- 
cal, and  in  the  other  states  so  far  as  they  are  such,  consciousness 
distinguishes  between  the  ego,  the  ego  in  action,  and  the  result  of  the 
acting  of  the  ego. 

(a.)  The  ego,  discerned  or  apperceived,  is  not  the  soul  as  a  sub- 
stance, but  only  the  individual  ego.  (6.)  The  ego  thus  apper- 


§  295.        CAUSATION  AND  THE  KELATION  OP  CAUSALITY.  493 

ceived  is  known  neither  as  out  of  action,  nor  as  prepared  for  action, 
but  as  acting — these  acts  in  all  cases  being  individual,  (c.)  This 
activity  is  also  causal  or  productive  action.  In  its  very  nature 
and  essence  it  is  known  as  passing  into  effects. 

In  other  words,De  Biran  holds  that  the  relation  of  causation  is 
gained  by  the  soul  through  conscious  observation  of  the  ego  in 
action.  In  answer  to  the  more  important  question,  How  does  it 
know  that  every  event  has  a  cause  ?  De  Biran  would  reply  :  On 
occasion  of  the  individual  apperception  described,  .we  extend  the 
causative  relations  to  objects  other  than  ourselves,  by  a  principle 
of  natural  induction  or  analogy. 

His  theory,  stated  in  a  single  proposition,  is  that  we  believe  all 
events  external  to  our  own  experience  to  be  caused,  because  we 
explain  all  'such  events  by  natural  induction,  after  the  like- 
ness or  analogy  of  that  spiritual  causation  of  which  we  are 
directly  cognizant  in  ourselves. 

The  theory  of  De  Biran  may  be  admitted,  that  we  gain  our 
first  knowledge  of  the  causal  relation  from  the  experience  of  per- 
sonal and  individual  causality,  without  involving  his  second  posi- 
tion, viz:  that,  by  natural  induction,  we  make  a  universal 
application  of  our  individual  experience  to  every  possible 
event.  The  so-called  natural  induction  of  De  Biran  must 
rest  upon  or  involve  an  intuition,  equivalent  to  the  a 
priori  principle,  every  event  must  have  a  cause.  Othervise 
it  is  impossible  to  see  what  warrant  we  have  to  transfer  what 
is  true  of  our  individual  experience  to  the  whole  spiritual 
and  material  universe.  The  fact  that, psychologically,  we  have  the 
earliest  and  most  complete  exemplification  of  the  causal  relation  in 
our  spiritual  experience,  does  not  in  the  least  explain,  philosophi- 
cally, why  it  is  that  we  believe  this  relation  to  be  of  universal 
application. 

From  the  fact  assumed  or  believed  that  the  soul  derives  its  first  notion  of  cause 
from  its  conscious  activity,  the  inference  has  been  derived  that  causation  is  pro- 
dicable  of  spirit  only ;  that  a  material  cause  is  contradictory  in  conception  and 
impossible  in  fact.  This  inference  has  been  held  in  two  forms. 

(1.)  It  has  been  inferred,  first,  that  the  conception  of  a  material  cause  is  self- 
contradictory  ;  because,  forsooth,  our  knowledge  of  the  causal  relation  is  derived 
from  our  own  psychical  activity.  Spirit  alone,  it  is  contended,  is  essentially  ac- 
tive and  causal,  and  in  spirit,  will  is  that  only  which  is  active.  Matter  is  incapa- 
ble of  force ;  it  presents  the  appearances  of  antecedent  and  successive  phenomena, 
but  behind  these  appearances  there  is  no  force  except  what  spirit  imparts. 


494  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §296. 

Against  this  view  the  following  objections  are  decisive :  («.)  The  soul  finds  in 
its  own  positive  psychical  experience/ evidence  that  "force  and  power  are  "not 
"  applicable  only  to  will ;"  for  it  finds  spiritual  energies  that  are  neither  intelli- 
gent nor  voluntary.  When  it  seeks  and  strives  to  fix  its  attention,  to  recall  for- 
gotten objects,  and  to  control  its  rebellious  desires,  it  contends  against  actual  forces 
which  are  not  uniformly  regulated  by  intelligence  or  controlled  by  the  will.  There 
are  'secondary  causes'  within  the  soul  at  least,  if  there  are  not  in  matter. 

(6.)  It  does  not  follow,  because  we  derive  the  notion  of  causation  or  force  from 
flie  conscious  activities  of  an  intelligent  will,  that  the  relation  itself  involves 
either  intelligence  or  will.  Let  it  be  conceded  that  at  first  the  soul,  by  a  not 
unnatural  illusion,  refers  every  event  which  it  does  not  produce  by  its  own  activity 
to  some  spiritual  agent  other  than  itself.  It  soon  learns  to  correct  such  judgments. 
It  learns  that  a  spirit  does  not  directly  blow  upon  the  trees  or  agitate  the  sea,  for 
it  finds  the  agitation  of  the  air  interposed ;  it  then  discovers  that  this  agitation  is 
occasioned  by  heat ;  then  that  heat  is  dependent  upon  the  sun,  or  some  other 
agent. 

(c.)  According  to  this  theory,  the  universe  of  matter  and  of  spirit,  except  so 
far  as  it  is  capable  of  intelligence,  is  unreal  and  impossible.  Matter  without 
qualities  or  powers,  is  inconceivable ;  but  qualities  and  powers  involve  force,  ?'.  e., 
causal  energy.  The  exercise  of  power  is  also  inconceivable,  except  by  beings 
capable  of  voluntary  energy. 

For  these  reasons  we  reject  the  theory.  We  distinguish  intelligent  and  volun- 
tary activity  from  simple  causal  energy.  We  distinguish  causal  from  creative 
force,  i.  e.,  origination  under  conditions  furnished  by  another  being  from  origina- 
tion without  such  conditions.  We  distinguish  primary  from  secondary  causes. 

(2.)  The  second  inference  derived  from  the  position  that  the  activity  of  spirit 
furnishes  the  notion  of  causation,  is,  that  there  is  but  one  agent  in  the  universe, 
and  He  is  the  Creator;  that  causation  is  conceivable  of  neither  created  matter 
nor  created  spirit,  and  the  apparent  activities  of  both  are  held  to  be  varied  mani- 
festations of  His  single  force,  in  phenomena  successive  to  one  another.  If  this 
doctrine  were  true,  it  could  not  be  legitimately  derived  in  the  way  prescribed  by 
this  theory,  which  makes  the  notion  of  causality  to  be  furnished  from  a  created  or 
finite  agent,  and  yet  infers  it  to  be  inapplicable  to  any  other  than  a  being  which 
is  infinite  and  uncreated. 

Malebranche  (RecJi.  de  la  Ver.,  p.  2,  c.  3,)  advocates  the  theory  in  question, 
but  not  on  these  grounds,  but  as  an  inference  from  his  general  theological  and 
philosophical  position,  that  God  is  the  only  agent,  and  that  in  him  we  perceive 
as  well  as  produce  every  object  in  the  universe. 

The  theor  §  296.  A  class  oftheories  ofhistorical  importance  com- 
which  resolves  prehends  all  those  which  resolve  this  relation  between 

causality  into  a    A 

reiii'ionofcon-  things  into  some  a  'priori  relation  between  concepts — 

cepts.  .          i  .  .  .  i 

in  other  words,  into  some  logical  axiom,  principle,  or 
relation.  The  fallacy  common  to  all  these  consists  in  inverting  the 
order  of  nature  and  of  reason.  A  correct  estimate  of  logical  relations 
and  principles  would  show  that  they  are  all  dependent  upon  some 
assumed  reality  of  things.  Among  such  realities,  the  relation  of 


§  297.        CAUSATION  AND  THE  RELATION  OF  CAUSALITY.  495 

causality  is  prominent  and  fundamental.  It  cannot  be  derived 
from  the  laws  of  identity  and  contradiction,  which  as  we  have 
shown  concern  concepts  only  and  are  designed  to  hold  the  mind 
to  consistency  in  their  use. 

It  has  not  been  uncommon  with  the  philosophers  of  the  later 
German  Schools  to  seek  to  resolve  the  principle  of  causality  into 
the  principle  of  the  sufficient  reason  viewed  as  a  logical  axiom 
This  follows  from  not  clearly  determining  and  carefully  keeping 
in  mind  the  relation  of  the  ratio  essendi  to  the  ratio  cognoscendi 
in  the  principle  of  the  sufficient  reason  itself.  Because  the  logical 
reason  is  more  general  or  extensive  in  its  application  than  the  real 
cause,  they  have  resolved  cause  into  reason,  instead  of  explaining 
reason  by  means  of  the  relation  of  cause.  We  have  already  shown, 
under  Deduction,  that  the  syllogistic  process,  and  indeed  all  logical 
reasoning  supposes  the  ratio  essendi,  i.  e.,  real  causal  action,  or 
that  which  may  be  conceived  as  such,  and  that  without  this  all 
deduction  is  meaningless  and  inconclusive,  (§§  221,  2.) 

This  inversion  of  the  real  order  of  the  dependence  of  these  con- 
ceptions may  be  traced  to  Wolff  and  Kant.  Kant  sanctioned  it  by 
the  suggestion  that  is  fundamental  to  his  system,  that  the  forms 
of  thought  are  not  necessarily  representative  of  the  forms  of  be- 
ing. Kant  makes  the  relation  of  causality  to  be  a  metaphysical 
relation  of  that  explicability  of  one  concept  by  another  which  is 
required  by  the  logical  faculty,  instead  of  a  real  relation  of 
things. 

It  has  been  carried  to  its  furthest  extreme  by  Hegel  in  the  fun- 
damental position  of  his  philosophy  which  he  boldly  attempted  to 
make  universal,  viz.,  that  all  the  so-called  relations  of  being 
may  be  developed  from  and  are  resolved  into  relations  of 
thought,  so  that  the  actual  world  is  but  the  necessary  evolution 
of  the  relations  that  belong  to  the  logical  concept.  The  relation 
of  the  reason  to  its  consequent,  and  by  consequence,  of  cause  to 
effect,  is  only  a  special  application  of  that  law  of  identity;  misin- 
terpreted by  his  logic,  which  is  properly  applied  only  in  the  sphere 
of  abstract  thought. 

§  297.   Another  theory  called  a  priori  is  the  theory 
advanced  by  Sir  William  Hamilton,  (Met., Lee.  39,   t 
40.)     This  theory  derives  our  conceptions  of,  and  our   S!lt"m< 
belief  in,  this  relation,  not  from  a  power,  but  an  impotence  of 


49^0  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  297. 

mind  ;  in  a  word,  it  resolves  it  into  the  more  general  "principle 
of  the  conditioned"  The  law  of  the  conditioned  is,  that  the  "  con- 
ceivable has  always  two  opposite  extremes,  and  that  the  extremes 
are  equally  inconceivable.  That  the  conditioned  is  to  be  viewed 
not  as  a  power,  but  as  a  powerlessness  of  mind  is  evinced  by  this 
— that  the  two  extremes  are  contradictories,  though  neither  alter- 
native can  be  conceived  or  thought  as  possible,  one  or  other  must 
be  admitted  to  be  necessary." 

This  general  powerlessness  gives  the  special  relation  of  causal- 
ity, when  applied  to  the  two  positive  forms  under  which  every 
object  is  and  must  be  conceived,  viz.,  existence  and  time.  By  the 
necessity  of  the  first,  the  mind  cannot  but  think  of  every  object 
as  existing.  It  cannot,  if  it  tries,  think  of  anything  as  not  ex- 
isting. By  the  second  the  thing  existing  is  not  now  what  it  was 
a  moment  before.  We  cannot  think  of  any  object  as  non-existing 
in  the  present.  No  more  can  we  think  of  the  same  as  non-exist- 
ent in  the  past.  We  cannot  think  of  its  absolute  commencement 
in  the  past,  nor  can  we  think  of  its  absolute  termination  in  the 
future.  We  can  neither  think  of  its  absolute  non-commencement 
nor  of  its  infinite  non-termination.  "  This  gives  us  the  category 
of  the  conditioned  as  applied  to  the  category  of  existence  under 
the  category  of  time." 

By  this  application  of  the  principle  of  the  conditioned,  the 
principle  of  causality  is  gained.  For  the  law  of  causality  is 
simply  this,  that  when  an  object  appears  to  commence  in  time,  \ve 
cannot  but  suppose  that  the  complement  of  existence  which  it 
contains  has  previously  existed ;  "  in  other  words,  that  all  we  at 
present  come  to  know  as  an  effect,  must  previously  have  existed 
in  its  causes." 

According  to  this  theory,  the  cause  or  causes  of  an  object  are 
the  sum  of  the  constituent  elements  of  its  being,  existing  at  a  pre- 
vious time  in  a  different  form  ;  the  effects  are  the  same  as 
existing  in  another  form  at  a  subsequent  time.  This  applies  to 
every  form  of  causation,  even  to  the  creation  of  the  universe. 
For  creation  is  not  a  springing  of  nothing  into  something  ;  "  it  is 
conceived,  and  is  by  us  conceivable  merely  as  an  evolution  of  a 
new  form  of  existence  by  the  fiat  of  the  Deity." 

The  objections  to  this  explanation  of  the  relation  of  causation, 
as  taught  by  Hamilton,  are  the  folio  whig : 


§  297.        CAUSATION  AND  THE  RELATION  OF  CAUSALITY.  497 

(1.)  It  is  not  true  that  it  is  an  original  and  necessary  belief, 
that  the  complement  of  existence  is  not  changed  with  the  changes 
of  phenomena.  For  example,  when  a  pile  of  fuel  is  consumed 
by  fire,  and  only  an  inconsiderable  residuum  of  ashes  remains, 
men  do  not  necessarily  and  instinctively  assert  that  the  total  of 
the  original  constituents  of  the  fuel  is  u-ndiminished.  So  far  is 
this  from  being  true,  that,  on  the  other  hand,  they  are  slow  to  ac- 
cept the  evidence  furnished  by  the  more  careful  experiments  of 
science,  that  the  products,  when  analyzed  and  gathered  after  com- 
bustion, equal  the  elements  of  the  substance  before  it  was 
burned. 

(2.)  The  asserted  impossibility  to  think  an  object  as  non-existent 
is  a  logical,  not  a  real  impossibility.  We  cannot  think  any  thing 
not  to  be  in  thought,  because,  while  we  think  of  it,  it  must  exist 
for  us  as  thought.  Even  when  we  think  of  it  as  not  existing, 
whether  in  the  present  or  in  the  past,  we  must  first  think  of  it  as 
existing  in  thought,  and  to  this  object  as  existing  in  thought  we 
deny  existence  in  fact.  If  we  think  of  a  centaur  or  a  hip- 
pogriff,  we  must  think  of  it  as  being.  If,  because  we  cannot 
think  of  an  object  actually  existing  to  be  non-existent,  we  may 
infer  that  the  complement  of  its  existence  does  not  change,  we 
may  also  infer  that,  because  we  think  of  a  centaur  and  a  hippogrifF 
as  existing,  they  both  in  fact  exist. 

(3.)  The  theory  is  utterly  inadequate  to  explain  psychical 
causality.  The  operations  of  the  soul  are,  as  we  have  seen, 
eminently  causal.  From  our  conscious  experience  of  this  class 
of  actions  the  first  notion  of  causality  is  derived.  Whether  the 
effects  in  question  are  produced  by  the  action  of  the  soul  within 
itself,  and  are  purely  psychical,  or  whether  they  are  wrought  in 
the  nervous  organism  by  the  soul ;  whether  they  are  wrought 
upon  matter  by  the  soul,  or  upon  the  soul  by  matter  ;  in  each 
of  these  cases  the  theory  fails  to  satisfy.  There  is  no  comple- 
ment of  existence  appearing  in  different  forms  at  different  times. 
Whether  the  effect  is  psychical,  physiological,  or  material,  is  not 
conceived  as  the  same  constituents  under  a  new  form.  It  is  what 
the  terms  denote  it  to  be — a  product,  an  effect,  a  result  of 
activity,  a  consequent  of  the  powers  and  activities  which  are  re- 
quired for  and  appropriate  to  the  result. 

(4.)  It  is  still  more  incongruous  with  any  right  notion  of  erea- 


498  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  297. 

tive  causality.  The  creation  of  matter  or  of  mind  implies  the 
production  or  origination  into  existence  of  that  which  did  not 
previously  exist  in  any  of  its  constituents.  It  is  called  by  Ham- 
ilton, "the  evolution  of  a  new  form  of  existence  by  the  fiat  of 
the  Deity."  But  evolution  ought,  in  consistency  with  his  theory, 
to  signify  the  changing  of  the  materials  already  existing  under 
one  form  into  some  new  form  of  the  existence  already  in  being. 
This  would  require  either  that  we  believe  in  the  co-eternity  of 
matter  with  God,  and  that  we  restrict  the  agency  of  the  Deity 
to  the  exercise  of  a  merely  plastic  or  formative  energy,  or 
it  would  involve  the  pantheistic  view,  that  in  the  spiritual 
nature  or  constitution  of  God  there  was  also  present  a  material 
substance,  from  which  by  a  new  evolution  of  divine  activity,  the 
created  universe  emerged,  as  a  new  form  of  the  matter  which 
had  from  eternity  existed  in  God.  From  spirit  as  such,  from 
a  pure  spiritual  essence,  it  cannot  be  conceived  that  matter 
should  be  evolved,  in  any  consistency  with  the  theory  of  Hamil- 
ton as  defined  by  himself. 

The  various  attempts  to  resolve  the  relation  of 

Conclusion.  .  A 

Our  position     causality  into  some  other  relation  either  a  posteriori 

reaffirmed.  •      •  -i         .  -i  •>  • 

or  a  priori  having  failed  to  be  satisfactory,  we  return 
with  greater  confidence  to  the  original  position  which  we  have 
already  explained  and  defended,  that  it  is  original  and  intuitive. 
The  various  applications  of  the  relation  and  principle  of  causality 
in  the  processes  of  the  intellect,  as  well  as  its  significance  as  an 
assumption  fundamental  to  our  higher  knowledge,  illustrate  and 
enforce  its  importance. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

DESIGN   OR   FINAL   CAUSE. 

FROM  the  principle  or  relation  of  causation  we  pass  by 
a  natural  transition  to  the  principle  of  design  or  adaptation,  or,  as 
it  is  usually  termed,  of  final  cause.  This  in  an  eminent  sense, 
is  a  synthetic  relation,  and  is  contrasted  with  the  relation  of 
causality  as  analytic.  The  movement  of  the  latter  is  from  the 
individual  to  the  general,  from  the  less  to  the  more  compreheu- 


§  299.  DESIGN  OR  FINAL  CAUSE.  499 

sive.  The  movement  of  adaptation  and  final  cause  is  from  the 
general  to  the  particular  and  the  individual.  It  unites  con- 
stituent elements  into  constituted  wholes. 

g  298.     The  term  final  cause,,  is  thus  explained :    Aristotle  and 
the  schoolmen  divided  all  possible  or  conceivable  causes  into  four;    plained.     For- 
the  material,  formal,  efficient,  and  final.     The  material  causes  are    ^'ie^ater^ 
those  material  elements  or  principles  of  which  any  existence  is    final  causes, 
composed,  whether  the  matter  is  bodily  or  spiritual.     The  formal 
cause  is  the  property  or  aggregation  of  properties  which  constitute  its  essence  or 
logical  content  (in  Aristotelian  phraseology,  its  form).      In  these  two  senses,  the 
word  cause  is  equivalent  to  element  or  constitutive  principle,  each  differing  ac- 
cording as  that  which  is  constituted  is  matter  or  form. 

The  efficient  cause  corresponds  with  the  cause  of  modern  philosophy,  except 
that  it  was  formerly  appropriated  to  the  most  conspicuous  or  prominent  of  the 
agents  or  conditions  that  produce  a  result ;  whereas,  in  modern  usage,  the  term  is 
extended  to  all  those  agents  which,  in  combination,  originate  an  effect. 

The  final  cause  was  the  design  or  end  which  was  conceived  as  impelling  and 
directing  the  action  of  a  number  or  succession  of  agencies,  till  it  was  actually 
brought  to  pass.  The  significance  of  this  appellation  can  be  understood  by  an 
example.  If  I  form  a  purpose,  the  event  or  result  when  made  actual,  will  be  the 
end  of  a  series  of  events  or  actions.  Hence  the  end,  by  a  secondary  signification, 
is  made  to  signify  a  purposed  result  or  a  design,  and  the  adjective  Jtnal  receives 
the  same  import.  This  purpose  is  called  a  cause,  because  it  is  conceived  when 
formed  as  causing  those  events  or  acts  which  are  necessary  to  its  realization. 
Hence  the  appellation,  final  cause, — i.  e.,  a  cause,  which,  beginning  as  a  thought, 
works  itself  at  last  into  a  fact  as  an  end  or  final  result. 

Aristotle  called  the  formal  cause  TTJV  ov<riav  KOI  TO  rt  jv  eivai,  the  material  cause 
TV  OArjj>  (cai  TO  viroKeinevov,  the  efficient  cause  o&ev  ij  apxn  T^S  Kivrjo-eus,  and  the  final 
cause  TO  oS  eveKo.  KO.I  TiyaOov.  Met.  1.  I.  83  a  27,  a  29,  a  30,  a  31. 

§  299.  The  relation  of  design  supposes  that  agen-  Deg.  n  and 
cies  exist  or  may  exist,  which  might  cause  a  result  adaptation, 
to  be.  The  result  is  called  the  end  or  final  cause. 
The  capacity  of  these  efficient  causes  when  combined  to  pro- 
duce the  effect  is  called  their  adaptation  or  fitness  for  it.  This 
adaptation  may  be  considered  subjectively  or  objectively.  If  it  is 
viewed  as  arranged  or  known  by  the  designer,  it  is  considered  sub- 
jectively, i.  e.,  it  is  a  design.  But  whether  it  is  known  or  not,  the 
capacity  for  or  the  possibility  of  it  exists  and  remains  to  be  disco- 
vered. It  pertains  to  actually  existing  forces  and  laws  of  nature, 
and  is  a  relation  which  may  be  affirmed  of  such  causes.  A  series  or 
combination  of  causes,  viewed  as  fitted  for  an  end  are  called  the 
means — literally  the  intermediate  agencies — between  the  end  as 
thought  and  the  end  as  produced. 


500  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  301. 

§  300.  The  position  which  we  assert  and  deftnd 
is  that  this  relation  is  believed  a  priori  to  pervade 
cessary  and  a  ^  existence,  and  must  be  assumed  as  the  ground  oj 
the  scientific  explanation  of  the  facts  and  phenomena 
of  the  universe.  We  do  not  inquire  whether  this  relation  is  ex- 
emplified in  our  experience  as  a  psychological  fact,  but  whether  it 
lies  at  the  ground  of  all  our  knowledge  as  a  necessary  relation  of 
things,  and  a  first  principle  or  axiom  of  thought — whether,  in 
other  words,  the  principle  of  adaptation  ranks  with  the  principle 
of  efficient  causation  as  a  necessary  and  a  priori  truth. 

We  assert  that  the  relations  and  laws  ascertained  by  asking  the 
questions  why  and  how,  are  not  the  only  relations  conceivable, 
but  that  others  hold  the  same  place  in  our  knowledge, 
viz.,  those  which  the  question  what  for  requires  as  its  an- 
swer. Among  his  four  causes,  Aristotle  gave  the  highest  pre- 
eminence to  the  oo  $y£xa  or  the  what  for.  Was  Aristotle  right  in 
assuming  that  the  end  is  as  important  to  be  known  as  the  defini- 
tion, the  constituents  and  the  origination  of  a  being  or  a  phe- 
nomenon ? 

§  301.  Our  reasons  for  the  truth  of  this  position 

Reasons.     The 

mind  impelled    are  the  following  '. 

to  Connect   ob-  ,     N       _„  .     ,    .     .  ,,     n  ,  ,  . 

jects  by  this  (1.)  Ihe  mind  is  impelled  to  seek,  and  is  satisfied 
when  it  finds  that  any  objects  or  events  are  related  as 
means  and  ends.  Whatever  these  objects  may  be  which  are  con- 
nected under  this  relation — whether  they  are  individuals  that  fill 
only  single  points  in  space  and  endure  but  for  a  moment  of 
time,  or  classes  of  beings  that  pervade  the  universe  by  their 
agency,  and  endure  with  energy  unwasted  from  generation  to 
generation — the  mind  inquires,  for  what  do  these  exist  and  act  ? 
and  if  it  can  find  an  answer,  it  accepts  it  with  rational  satisfac- 
tion. 

It  asks  the  question  and  accepts  the  answer  in  a  way  precisely 
analogous  to  that  in  which  it  inquires  and  learns,  By  what 
agency  and  under  what  law  does  any  thing  exist  and  act  ?  It 
asks  as  pressingly  and  as  persistently,  concerning  wThat  it  may 
find  in  this  relation,as  concerning  what  it  can  know  under  the 
relation  of  causation.  When  it  receives  a  probable  answer,  it 
welcomes  it  with  a  more  complete  and  a  higher  satisfaction  than 
a  similar  explanation  by  efficient  causes  and  their  laws.  This 


§  303.  DESIGN   OR   FINAL   CAUSE.  501 

ground  of  analogy  would  lead  us  to  believe  that  the  two  relations 
are  both  original  and  intuitively  assumed. 

§  302.  (2.)  The  relations  under  which  this  axiom 
requires  that  objects  should  be  connected,  is  higher 
than  any  of  those  which  arise  under  the  category  of 
efficient  or  blind  causative  force. 

The  relation  of  means  to  ends  supposes  that  of  cause  and  effect. 
We  must  first  suppose  causes  or  agents  to  exist,  before  we  can 
suppose  them  to  be  applied  or  employed  as  means.  But  when 
forces  and  their  laws  are  ascertained,  and  by  them  unity  and 
order  and  dependence  are  established  among  the  otherwise  dis- 
connected beings  and  events  of  the  universe,  the  mind  takes  a 
step  higher  in  its  aspirations,  seeking  to  rearrange  under  more 
elevated  relations  the  objects  united  under  the  lower.  The  one 
class  being  presumed,  and  in  part  at  least  successfully  established, ' 
the  mind  believes  that  a  higher  is  possible,  and  proceeds  to  dis- 
cover it.  Subjectively  viewed,  this  relation  gives  a  higher  satis- 
faction. Objectively  regarded,  it  stands  higher  in  rational  value 
than  that  of  efficient  causation,  which  is  only  a  stepping-stone 
and  preparation  for  it. 

§  303.  (3.)  The  principle  has  been  of  essential  ser- 
vice in  scientific  discovery.  Should  it  be  conceded  that  The  princip10 
the  appropriate  sphere  of  science  proper  is  to  develop 
and  establish  the  so-called  powers  and  laws  of  nature, 
and  that  the  discovery  of  adaptations  lies  without  its 
sphere,  it  would  still  be  true  that  the  belief  that  the  universe 
is  full  of  such  adaptations,  is  of  essential  service  in  suggesting 
powers  and  laws  previously  undeveloped  and  undetermined.  The 
history  of  scientific  discovery  abounds  in  confirmations  of  this 
truth. 

When  Harvey  observed  at  the  outlet  of  the  veins  and  the  rise 
of  the  arteries,  certain  curiously  constructed  valves, — those  in 
the  one,  opening  inward  towards  the  heart,  and  in  the  other,  open- 
ing outward  away  from  the  same,  he  was  persuaded  that  the 
arrangement  indicated  an  end  which  supposed  activities  and  laws 
which  he  proceeded  to  ascertain  and  determine. 

Further  illustrations  of  the  value  of  this  principle  in  scientific 
discovery  will  be  given  when  we  treat  of  its  application  to  the 
several  sciences.  Cf.  §  §  31"  seq. 


502  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  305. 

The  Founda-       §  304.  (4.)   The  entire  superstructure  of  ihe  Inductive 
ducti^pnikS-  Philosophy  rests  upon  the  principle  in  question. 
ophy-  It  has    already   been   shown  that   the  Inductive 

method  rests  on  several  assumptions.  They  are  such  as  these  : 
nature  is  uniform  in  her  operations  and  laws  ;  the  indications  or 
signs  of  less  obvious  powers  and  laws  may  be  confided  in ;  the 
analogies  of  nature  are  important  means  of  suggesting  facts  and 
laws,  and  of  inciting  to  experiment  and  discovery ;  the  simplest 
relationships,  the  fewest  agencies,  and  the  most  economical  uses  of 
forces  are  always  presumed.  These  and  other  like  axioms  of  the 
student  of  nature  are  but  varied  applications  of  the  principle  in 
question,  viz.,  that  in  the  universe  objectively  considered,  there  is  an 
intelligent  and  wise  adaptation  of  powers  and  laws  to  rational  ends, 
and  that  the  same  is  true  of  the  relation  of  the  universe  to  the 
knowing  mind. 

It  is  not  sufficient  for  the  philosopher  to  say  that  without  these 
assumptions,  the  science  of  nature  itself  would  be  impossible,  in- 
asmuch as  the  conception  of  science  requires  that  powers  should 
be  fixed,  and  laws  should  be  uniform,  and  indications  and  analo- 
gies should  be  trustworthy  — that  were  science  not  to  assume  the 
truths  of  these  maxims  she  would  commit  suicide.  To  this  it  is 
pertinent  to  reply,  What  if  science  itself  should  be  impossible  ? 
What  is  the  imperative  necessity  for  science  ?  Every  reply  to 
these  questions  implies  that  the  adaptations  of  nature  to  the 
methods  and  impulses  of  the  knowing  mind  are  such  as  indi- 
cate at  least  that  class  of  designs  in  the  structure  of  the  universe 
which  the  possibility  of  science  requires. 

§  305.     (5.)  It  is  also  needed  to  explain  those  pheno- 

Rpquired  to  .  .  l 

explain   the  mena   of  organic   existence,   which    the    relations   of 

phenomena  . 

of     organic  efficient  causes  are  entirely  incompetent  to  resolve  or 

existence.  . 

even  to  denne.  An  organic  being,  or  an  organism, 
can  only  be  defined  as  a  being  of  which  each  organ  acts  for 
the  integrity  and  well-being  of  every  other  organ,  and  all  act 
together  for  the  life  of  the  whole  More  abstractly,  and  in 
the  terms  of  the  relation  in  question,  an  organism  is  a  being  in 
which  each  of  the  parts  and  the  whole  are  respectively  means 
and  ends  for  one  another.  We  find  it,  in  fact,  to  be  true,  that 
in  any  living  being,  whether  plant  or  animal,  the  elements  or 
organs  act  together  so  as  to  promote  trie  action  of  each  other, 


§305  DESIGN   OR   FINAL   CAUSE.  503 

and  of  the  whole.  If  the  appropriate  function  of  each  organ  is 
performed,  the  function  of  every  other  is  also  fulfilled,  and  when 
all  together  are  exerted  they  are  the  conditions  of  the  growth, 
the  development  and  the  remaining  functions  of  the  plant  or 
animal.  In  the  animal,  the  action  of  the  lungs  is  necessary  to 
that  of  the  heart,  and  the  action  of  the  heart  to  that  of  the 
lungs,  the  action  of  both  to  the  action  of  the  stomach,  and  the 
action  of  the  stomach  to  that  of  both  these,  and  the  mutual 
action  of  these  and  the  remaining  organs,  to  the  health  and  life 
of  the  whole  body. 

The  elements  or  agents  of  which  these  organs  are  composed, 
have  their  well  ascertained  mechanical  and  chemical  properties, 
and  when  these  are  combined  in  inorganic  substances,  their 
results  follow  the  laws  which  control  them.  But  when  they  are 
combined  in  living  beings  or  their  organs,  these  powers  and 
laws  do  not  explain  in  the  least  degree  these  compounds  or  their 
functions.  The  materials  or  agents  which  form  the  heart,  the 
lungs  or  the  brain,  do  not  at  all  explain  the  peculiar  substance, 
form,  or  functions  of  these  organs ;  much  less  do  they  account 
for  the  singular  capacity  which  they  possess  of  producing  a  whole, 
on  which  they  depend  for  their  own  existence  as  a  living  heart, 
lungs  and  brain, — which  in  its  turn  as  a  living  whole  is  de- 
pendent on  each  of  these. 

All  that  we  can  do,  is — within  the  sphere  of  the  mechanical 
and  chemical  relations  of  the  constituent  elements — to  observe  the 
resultant  products  into  which  they  are  transmuted ;  but  the  laws 
by  which  these  results  are  produced,  are  mostly  hidden  from  view. 
The  Inductive  philosophy,  with  its  efficient  causations,  is  here 
wholly  at  a  loss  :  It  cannot  explain  how  the  agents  which  form  the 
vegetable  or  the  animal  cell  should  impart  to  that  least  microcosm 
the  wonderful  power  of  developing  a  new  cell  from  within  itself, 
or  of  adding  cell  after  cell  to  its  substance.  Much  less  can  it 
explain  why  or  how  it  is  that  one  cell  is  the  rudiment,  of  a  plant 
and  another  that  of  an  animal — that  one  expands  into  this  plant, 
and  another  into  that ;  one  into  this  animal  and  another  into 
that.  All  this  is  totally  unknown.  The  principle  of  life  and 
the  conditions  of  life  are  only  names  for  causes  that  cannot  !>• 
explained  by  such  methods.  The  effects  cannot  even  be  described, 
much  less  explained  by  the  relations  of  efficient  causation. 


504  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  307. 

Under  these  circumstances  we  resort  to  the  relation  of  adap- 
tation and  the  assumption  of  design  in  order  to  define  and  ex- 
plain the  phenomena.  After  no  other  relation  than  this  can  we 
explain  the  fact  that  dead  matter  is  transmuted  into  living  par- 
ticles, and  that  aggregates  of  these  particles  are  developed  into 
living  organs,  which  act  together  so  long  as  the  being  lives  of 
which  they  are  parts.  By  no  other  law  than  that  of  design  can 
we  explain  how  each  class  of  living  beings  works  for  itself,  having 
a  form,  habits,  tastes,  and  instincts  peculiar  to  itself,  and  how 
each  individual  of  each  class  is  an  end  to  itself,  having  an 
individual  form,  size,  and  other  peculiarities  more  or  less  marked, 
according  to  its  rank  and  place  in  the  scale  of  being. 

§  306.  Two  facts  are  here  suggested  touching  the 

Relation     of  ° 

final  to  efficient  relation  oi  nnal  to  emcieat  causes.     j^he  first  is  that 

causes    in    the      -i       -i  •    i  •        •  i          r>  i      • 

higher  orders  the  higher  we  rise  in  the  scale  of  being,  the  less  we 
know  of  the  relations  of  efficient  causes;  while  those 
of  final  cause  are  more  and  more  various  and  conspicuous.  In  un- 
organized matter  we  have  occasion  chiefly  to  apply  efficient 
causes  and  their  unvarying  laws.  As  we  ascend  into  the  regions 
of  life,  we  are  more  and  more  baffled  in  our  attempts  to  detect  the 
elementary  forces  and  to  determine  their  unvarying  laws,  but  are 
more  and  more  gratified  at  seeing  the  relations  of  adaptation  be- 
come more  and  more  conspicuous.  The  second  is,  That  one  of  these 
relations  does  not  displace  the  other,  and  the  discoveries  in  respect  to 
the  one  neither  compel  nor  allow  us  to  dispense  with  the  search 
after  the  other.  On  the  contrary,  the  more  complete  is  our 
analysis  of  efficient  forces  and  our  determination  of  their  laws, 
the  greater  is  the  opportunity  to  notice  how  the  structure  whose 
constituents  are  resolved  by  analysis,  is  controlled  by  manifest 
fitness  and  adaptation.  Each  newly  discovered  element  and 
determined  law  opens  an  opportunity  for  some  adaptation  as  yet 
unobserved. 

§  307.  To  the  doctrine  that  the  belief  in  design  is 

Objections -(I.)     .  ,  ,  .        . 

Men  mistake  in  intuitive,  the  following  are  urged  as  objections: 
mento  about  £  (1.)  Men  mistake  in  discovering  or  assigning  ends, 
and  the  mistakes  into  which  they  fall  are  irrational 
and  foolish;  whatever  man  in  his  selfishness  and  limitation  may 
think  important  to  himself,  he  thinks  must  have  been  designed 
in  the  economy  of  nature,  and  thus  is  exposed  to  the  danger  of 


§  309.  DESIGN   OR   FINAL   CAUSE.  505 

setting  up  his  narrow  and  interested  judgments  as  the  real  adap- 
tations and  intents  of  the  Creator. 

It  is  sufficient  to  reply  that,  if  men  mistake  in  assigning  the 
ends  of  phenomena,  they  do  the  same  in  interpreting  their  effi- 
cient causes.  We  do  not  raise  the  question  whether  men  can  dis- 
cover particular  ends  with  infallible  certainty,  but  whether  they 
intuitively  believe  there  are  ends  to  which  all  beings  and  agents 
are  adapted,  and  for  which  they  are  designed. 

§  308.  (2.)  It  may  be  objected  that  we  have  no 

.  ,         -     .  •  •      (2-)  o«r  inter- 

means  of  testinq  and  connrminq    our  inductions  in   potations  can 

,  .,      .  „  T  neiiher          be 

respect  to  ends,  while  in  respect  of  causes  and  laws  tested  nor  con- 
we  are  provided  with  tests,  rules  and  methods  which 
are  universally  acknowledged  to  be  amply  sufficient.  "  In  ordinary 
cases  the  methods  of  agreement,  of  difference,  and  of  concomitant 
variations  are  acknowledged  to  be  ample:  In  special  exigencies 
artificial  experiments  may  be  instituted  to  supplement  the  defi- 
ciencies of  simple  observation:  But  in  ascertaining  ends  we  have 
no  such  methods,  tests,  or  experiments." 

We  reply:  It  will  be  found  on  closer  inspection,  that  the 
methods  appropriate  to  the  two  are  more  nearly  alike  than  would 
be  at  first  imagined.  It  has  been  already  shown,  that  the  end  or 
purpose,  in  its  relations  to  the  means  of  its  realization,  may  be 
conceived  of  as  an  efficient  force  carried  back  from  the  end  to 
the  beginning  of  the  series  of  causes  and  effects,  which  drives 
them  to  their  issue  by  a  constant  energy.  If  this  be  so,  the 
question,  What  is  the  particular  end  of  a  combination  or  series? 
may  be  answered  by  the  methods  appropriate  to  efficient 
causes.  It  may  in  some  cases  be  less  easy  to  conjecture  the 
probable  end  than  it  is  to  conjecture  the  probable  cause,  inasmuch 
as  many  such  ends  might  in  a  given  case,  be  supposed  to  bo 
equally  compatible  with  the  effects.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  in 
other  departments  of  nature,  as  the  organic  and  historical,  the  ends 
and  adaptations  flash  upon  the  mind  without  the  need  of  inquiry 
or  tests  of  any  kind,  while  in  these  very  departments  the  efficient 
forces  usually  elude  the  most  subtle  analysis,  and  refuse  to  yield 
to  the  most  exact  and  rigorous  methods. 

§  309.   (3.)  It  may  be  still  further  objected  that  the 
adaptation  of  means  to  ends  is  an  actual  relation,  of 
which  we  are  aware  from  our  own  conscious  activity, 
22 


506  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  310 

and  it  is  simply  by  a  fiction  that  we  transfer  it  to  other,  i.  e.,  to 
material  objects. 

To  this  objection  we  reply,  that  the  activity  of  our  own  souls 
and  the  relations  which  are  instanced  or  exemplified  in  our  con- 
scious mental  and  moral  functions,  hold  precisely  the  same  rela- 
tion to  efficient  as  to  final  causes.  The  most  complete  knowledge, 
we  may  say  the  only  complete  knowledge,  which  we  have  of 
power  or  efficiency,  is  gained  through  or  by  means  of  the  active 
energy  of  our  own  spirits.  By  this,  we  in  a  certain  sense  image, 
cf.  §  206,  this  abstract  relation  whenever  we  have  occasion  to 
affirm  it  of  impersonal  or  material  agents.  In  doing  so,  we  use 
examples,  associations,  and  language  taken  from  our  personal 
activity.  It  is  not  true,  however,  that  we  affirm  this  relation  of 
all  the  objects  in  the  universe,  because  we  have  happened  to 
experience  its  agency  in  our  own  spirits.  It  is  by  an  intuition 
that  we  affirm  it  to  be  necessary  to  a  rational  construction  of  the 
universe.  But  this  very  objection  itself  suggests  an  argument 
in  defence  of  the  propriety  of  making  a  similar  application  of 
final  cause.  The  power  of  adapting  means  to  ends  is  one  with 
which  we  ourselves  are  very  familiar  in  our  own  conscious  ex- 
perience. We  propose  ends.  We  devise  and  arrange,  i.  e.,  adapt 
means  to  bring  them  to  pass.  We  interpret  the  actions  of  others 
by  supposing  that  they  are  directed  by  such  intentions  and  adap- 
tations. We  interpret  the  results  of  their  actions  when  they  are 
fixed  and  made  permanent  in  structures  controlled  by  the  same 
relation.  It  is  a  fair  argumentum  ad  hominem  to  use 
The  relation  jn  replv,  when  it  is  objected  that  we  interpret  the  uni- 

uiNjuestioned  r  J  >  J 

"atSns6  appli  verse  by  a  relation  derived  from  our  uniform  and  per- 
sonal experience,  that  in  this  experience  we  have  an 
agency  directed  in  part,  at  least,  by  design.  The  agency  is  spiritual, 
which  first  proposes  ends  and  then  adapts  forces  for  their  achieve- 
ment. It  is  certainly  possible  or  supposable  that  the  results  of  a 
similar  agency  should  pervade  the  universe,  and  make  themselves 
manifest  in  discoverable  adaptations.  To  assume  or  employ  it  in 
the  explanation  of  phenomena  is  not  necessarily  unphilosopidcal. 
§  310.  (4.)  It  may  be  objected  still  further,  that 
ItjJe^infro-  if  we  recognize  final  cause  as  a  principle,  we  introduce 
iosopl/y  which  into  the  universe,  for  the  explication  of  its  phe- 
SiCf.°88ibly  nomena>  two  principles,  of  which  the  one  may  at 


§  311.  DESIGN    OR    FINAL   CAUSE.  507 

times  conflict  with  the  other.  In  so  doing  we  weaken  confidence 
in  the  processes  and  axioms  of  pure  science,  and  in  the  stability 
of  the  laws  and  the  order  of  nature.  Science,  it  is  contended, 
must  assume  not  only  the  stability  but  the  supremacy  of  its  own 
laws,  and  it  can  neither  recognize  nor  respect  anjr  other. 

it  may  be  urged  in  reply  that  the  principle  of  fiual  cause,  is  so 
far  from  weakening  our  rational  confidence  in  the  stability  of 
the  laws  of  nature  or  disturbing  our  faith  in  the  axioms  of 
science,  that  it  confirms  both.  What  science  blindly  assumes, 
this  rationally  accounts  for  and  makes  necessary.  It  gives  a 
reason  for  the  order  of  nature  and  the  principles  of  knowledge  ; 
and  the  only  reason  which  can  be  suggested,  viz.,  the  adaptation 
of  such  order  to  the  uses  and  ends  of  the  human  intellect,  and 
of  human  science.  As  we  have  shown  already,  it  furnishes 
the  only  solid  foundation  for  the  assumptions  of  induction. 

But  it  will  still  be  objected  ;  if  efficient  causes  and  physical 
laws  are  to  acknowledge  themselves  thus  indebted  to  final  causes, 
they  must  also  confess  their  subjection  to  the  same,  and  be  ready 
to  stand  aside  and  be  suspended  whenever  the  principle  of  final 
cause  shall  require.  In  other  words,  the  order  of  nature  may  be 
broken  whenever  the  requirements  of  final  cause  shall  so  direct, 
whenever  the  claims  of  the  so-called  reason  of  things,  or  of  al- 
leged moral  and  religious  interests  may  demand  an  inroad  upon 
this  regularity,  either  in  special  acts  of  creation  or  exertions  of 
miraculous  agency.  This  we  assent  to,  but,  we  find  no  reason  on 
this  account  to  reject  the  principle  or  its  asserted  supremacy,  but 
an  additional  reason  for  accepting  both.  If  the  principle  of  final 
cause  will  not  only  render  the  service  of  sustaining  our  confi- 
dence in  the  stability  of  the  laws  of  nature  in  all  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances, but  will  also  account  for  such  extraordinary  devia- 
tions from  this  order  as  may  be  required  in  the  history  of  man, 
then  for  this  double  service  it  deserves  to  be  esteemed  of  greater 
value  and  authority.  [Cf.  Locke,  Essay,  B.  iv.  c.  xvi.  §  13.] 

§311.  (5.)  It  is  objected  still  further,  that  the  5)Thesearch 
search  after  final  causes  has  seriously  hindered  the  after  final 

*  cuuses  has  hin- 


advancement  of  science,  by  turning  aside  the  atten-   dered 
tion  and  interest  of  observers  from  their  appropriate 
duty,  which  is  the  investigation  and  determination  of  efficient 
causes  and  their  laws. 


508  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  311. 

Lord  Bacon,  it  is  said,  was  so  alive  to  its  evil  influence  as  to 
utter  his  memorable  and  oft-repeated  caution  in  the  words: 
"  Causarum  finalium  inquisitio  sterilis  est  et  tanquam  virgo  Deo 
consecrata  nihil  parit." — De  Aug.  Scient.,  III.  4.  Descartes  was 
still  more  strenuous  in  the  same  opinion,  as  appears  from  these 
assertions :  "  Totum  illud  causarum  genus  quod  a  fine  peti  solet 
in  rebus  physicis  nullum  usum  habere  existimo  ;  non  enim  absque 
temeritate  me  puto  posse  investigare  fines  Dei." — Med.  iv.  20. 
"  Ita  denique  nullas  unquam  rationes  circa  res  naturales  a  fine 
quam  Deus  aut  natura  in  iis  faciendis  sibi  proposuit  discernimus, 
quia  non  tantum  debemus  nobis  arrogare  ut  ejus  consiliorum  nos 
esse  participes  putemus." — Princ.  Phil.,  p.  I.  28. 

To  this  objection  we  reply :  That  what  Bacon  intended  was 
that  the  attention  of  the  inquirer  should  not  be  diverted  from  the 
investigation  of  efficient  causes  by  the  suggestion  of  ends  or 
adaptations,  for  the  appropriate  sphere  of  the  interpreter  of 
nature  is  to  develop  agents  and  laws  that  are  unknown,  or  newly 
to  confirm  and  exemplify  those  already  established.  In  this  he 
was  right.  But,  that  Bacon  himself  believed  that  nature  is 
penetrated  and  illumined  by  the  higher  relations  of  design  is 
evident  from  this  among  similar  intimations :  "  I  had  rather  be- 
lieve all  the  fables  in  the  Legend  and  the  Talmud  and  the  Alco- 
ran, than  that  this  universal  frame  is  without  a  mind." 
"  For  while  the  mind  of  man  looketh  upon  second  causes 
scattered,  it  may  sometimes  rest  in  them  and  go  no  further; 
but  when  it  beholdeth  the  chain  of  them,  confederate  and 
linked  together,  it  must  needs  fly  to  Providence  and  the  Deity." — 
Essays,  xvi. 

When  Bacon  says  that  the  inquiry  after  final  causes  is  without 
fruit,  he  must  mean  '  practical  fruit,'  or  the  production  of  direct 
advantage  to  the  interests  of  man.  It  is,  in  fact,  so  far  from 
being  barren,  that  as  we  have  already  seen,  §  303,  the  considera- 
tion of  ends  has  been  fruitful  in  the  suggestion  of  undiscovered 
agencies  as  their  means,  and  has  thus  proved  itself  a  most  impor- 
tant agent  in  such  discoveries.  It  has  been  more  efficient  in  leading 
to  the  prudens  qucestio,  the  sagacious  guess,  or  the  ingenious  hypothe- 
sis, which  has  so  often  opened  the  way  for  decisive  experiments. 
If  our  doctrine  is  correct,  that  the  methods  and  rules  of  induction 
themselves  rest  upon  the  belief  in  design,  then  final  cause  is  so 


§  312.  DESIGN   OR   FINAL   CAUSE.  509 

far  from  being  barren   that  she  deserves  to  be  honored  as  the 
Alma  Mater  of  the  Inductive  Philosophy  itself. 

§  312.  (6.)  It  is  objected  again,  that  what  (6.)Thcadapta_ 
are  called  the  adaptations  of  nature,  are  only  l™* Uf,""*1^® 
the  necessary  conditions  of  existence  and  its  pheno-  conditions  of 

A  existence. 

mena. 

When,  for  example,  the  eye  is  said  to  be  adapted  to  the  light, 
and  both  to  the  production  of  vision,  this  says  the  objector,  is 
only  another  phrase  for  saying  that  the  eye  as  we  find  it,  acting 
with  the  light  as  we  find  it,  produces  its  pictures  upon  the  retina, 
and  these  acting  with  the  intellect  and  sentient  organism,  produce 
the  sense-perceptions  which  we  call  vision.  WThat  are  called  the 
ends  of  nature,  to  which  her  forces  are  said  to  be  adapted,  are 
simply  the  effects  of  which  these  forces  are  the  necessary  and 
actual  conditions.  The  fish,  we  say,  is  adapted  in  its  structure 
and  its  instincts  to  the  water,  and  the  water  exists  with  relation 
to  the  fish,  but  the  truth  is  that  there  could  be  no  fish  without 
water,  for  without  water,  the  existence  and  conception  of  the  fish 
are  impossible.  We  know  what  appears,  i.  e.,  what  is  made  mani- 
fest, and  we  know  it  under  the  single  relation  of  the  forces  which 
cause  it  to  be.  This  is  the  only  relation  under  which  we  can  regard 
it.  As  to  whether  other  effects  might  or  might  not  have  been  pro- 
duced from  these  causes  in  different  conjunctions  and  intensities, 
we  have  no  means  of  deciding.  Whether  other  effects  may  not 
be  produced  in  future  we  cannot  say.  All  that  we  know  is  what 
has  been,  and  now  is,  and  by  what  means.  These  have  been,  and 
are,  and  occur  under  the  operation  of  these  very  causes  and  laws. 
We  inquire  concerning  the  actual  conditions  of  things,  not  con- 
cerning possible  designs. 

In  reply  to  this  class  of  objections,  we  need  only  say  that  they 
apply,  not  to  the  position  that  the  belief  in  final  cause  is  a  first 
principle,  but  to  the  doctrine  that  this  belief  is  derived  from  ob~ 
servation  and  required  by  experience.  If  the  principle  is  intui- 
tive and  a  priori  (in  the  sense  explained,  §  246),  we  bring  it  with 
us  to  the  explanation  of  the  facts.  We  do  not  derive  it  from  ex- 
perience by  an  a  posteriori  method,  but  we  apply  it  to  experience 
by  one  that  is  purely  a  priori.  It  is  true,  if  facts  and  phenomena 
were  inconsistent  with  the  principle,  we  should  be  embarrassed 
by  the  discrepancy  of  the  two.  But  no  incompatibility  is  urged, 


510  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  814. 

only  that  final  causes  are  not  proved  by  experience.  It  is 
conceded  that  the  explanation  by  efficient  causes  is  not  incon- 
sistent with  that  by  final  causes,  inasmuch  as  it  is  through  effects 
actually  produced  that  we  infer  these  effects  were  intended  and 
provided  for. 

But  we  take  issue  with  the  position  that  we  find  nothing  more 
than  the  conditions  of  existence.  We  find  not  simply  the  condi- 
tions of  mere  existence  in  the  causes  of  effects  produced,  but  the 
conditions  of  well-being,  or  adaptations  to  a  highly  artificial,  ele- 
vated, and  refined  existence  and  enjoyment ;  and  these  in  forms 
so  manifold  as  to  be  entirely  consistent  with  the  a  priori  princi- 
ple which  we  bring  to  the  explanation  of  the  facts.  The  illus- 
trations of  this  assertion  can  only  be  gathered  from  the  study  of 
individual  examples. 

§  313.  (7.)  It  may  be  objected  again:  that  adaptar 
tfcS'L "malted  ^on  can  onty  ke  traced  in  fact  in  a  limited  class  of 
istenc|anic  **~  phenomena,    viz.,     those     of     organized     existence, 
whereas  were  it  necessarily  presumed  it  might  be  dis- 
cerned in  all  kinds  of  being,  the  inorganic  as  truly  as  the  organic. 

It  is  sufficient  to  reply  that  examples  can  be  found  in  every 
kind  of  object-matter  as  will  be  shown  in  another  place.  They 
are  more  striking  within  the  region  and  sphere  of  life,  indeed, 
but  are  not  less  real  beyond  that  sphere.  Besides,  this  axiom  is 
the  foundation  on  which  rests  the  structure  of  the  inductive 
method,  which  is  as  often  applied  to  inorganic  as  to  organic 
being.  This  makes  it  necessary  to  apply  it  to  every  kind  and 
style  of  existence. 

(8)Wearen.,t  §  ^14.  (8.)  It  might  also  be  urged  that  we  cannot 
Srmin^it  of  trace  or  interPrefc  adaptations  on  a  scale  sufficiently 
tete5:ed30fex~  extensive  to  warrant  our  affirming  that  they  exist 
throughout  the  whole  universe  of  being.  "  We  may, 
indeed,  guess  at  them  within  a  limited  range  of  observation. 
But  it  is  presumptuous  to  assume  that  we  can  trace  the  adapta- 
tions and  discover  the  ends  of  the  entire  universe." 

If  this  were  admitted  to  be  true,  it  would  not  hold  against  the 
principle  that  ends  exist,  and  that  adaptations  to  them  regulate 
all  the  things  that  are.  It  is  for  the  principle  that  we  contend, 
not  for  infallibility  in  the  application  of  it  to  individual  cases. 

The    earne  law  holds   good   of    final   causes   as   of  efficient 


§  315.  DESIGN   OR   FINAL   CAUSE.  511 

causes.  That  both  exist,  and  both  control  the  universe  is  known 
to  the  human  mind  by  the  necessity  of  its  nature.  The  discovery 
of  instances  and  examples  of""  each  is  accomplished  by  experi- 
ence and  induction.  Both  can  be  traced  by  observation  in  but 
few  classes  of  objects,  and  within  that  portion  of  the  universe 
only  which  comes  under  our  eye  or  ear,  or  the  report  of  our  fel- 
low-men. 

But  the  one  can  be  traced  as  far  as  the  other.  What  is  connected 
writh  its  fellow  as  adapted  to  an  end  under  this  relation,  is  an  ef- 
ficient agent  or  force.  If  we  can  trace  gravitation  as  far  as  the 
utmost  verge  of  material  being,  we  can  also  affirm  that  it  was 
designed  to  hold  the  masses  in  their  relative  positions  and  their 
paths  of  motion.  The  principle  of  final  cause  moreover  is  abso- 
lutely required  to  warrant  the  extension  of  the  relations  of  effi- 
cient causes  observed  within  a  limited  sphere,  throughout  those 
regions  of  which  observation  and  testimony  can  give  only  an 
uncertain  and  incomplete  report. 

§  315.  (9.)  Last  of  all  it  may  be  said,  that  the 
recognition  of  this  as  a  first  principle  would  require  cam 
us  to  ascribe  intention  and  adaptation  to  an  un- 
limited  Being,  whereas  it  supposes  certain  forces  or 
powers  already  given  or  existing,  and  the  problem  arises  how  to 
dispose  of  these  so  as  to  attain  or  produce  the  designed  result. 
Such  a  problem  can  never,  it  is  contended,  be  presented  to  an 
unlimited  Being,  who,  by  the  very  supposition,  is  not  confined  to 
forces  or  agencies  which  already  exist,  but  can  produce  effects  by 
a  fiat  of  creative  will.  Moreover,  the  supposition  would  introduce 
into  such  a  mind  and  order  the  reverse  of  the  rational.  It  would 
make  the  production  of  agencies  go  before  the  disposition  of 
them  to  an  end.  It  would  make  blind  fores  precede  wise  fore- 
cast. 

None  of  these  inferences  are  warranted.  Because  in  the  order 
of  design  thought  must  recognize  the  possible  adaptations  of 
forces,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  forces  must  exist  in  order  to  be 
thought  of  as  existing,  or  in  order  that/  certain  adaptations  should 
be  determined  on.  Both,  indeed,  may  be  objects  of  design,  the  ex- 
istence of  the  forces  and  their  adaptations;  or,  rather,  the 
existence  of  the  forces  because  of  their  adaptations  to  accomplish 
some  end  or  ends  of  thought.  Even  the  human  mind,  impotent  ai 


512  THE    HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  316. 

it  is  to  create,  sometimes  imagines  to  itself,  i.  e.,  creates  in  thought 
some  new  agent  in  the  world  of  matter  or  of  spirit,  and  revels  in 
contriving  the  variety  of  uses  to  which  it  might  make  it  subser- 
vient. How  much  more  readily  may  that  Being  whose  thoughts 
can  in  any  instant  become  powers,  laws,  and  facts ! 

§  316.  But  the  most  instructive  view  which  we  can 
The  principle  take  of  this  principle  is  to  contemplate  the  variety  of 
and  confirmed,  its  applications.  It  has  already  been  observed  that 

by  its  apphca-  J 

tions    (i.)   to   First  or  Intuitional  Truths,  are  never  apprehended 

metaphysics.        .  . 

in  actual  application  as  general  propositions.  They 
can  only  be  discerned  in  the  concrete,  as  they  actually  connect  indi- 
vidual things  or  phenomena.  Thus  we  cannot  discern  causation 
or  adaptation  as  universal  and  a  priori ;  we  only  discern  an  event 
or  being  as  causative  or  caused,  as  a  means  or  an  end.  When  we 
appeal  to  the  use  which  is  made  of  these  relations  in  the  sciences 
as  proof  that  they  are  fundamental  and  intuitive,  we  expect  to 
find  that  these  sciences  constantly  assume  these  relations  to  be 
valid,  by  explaining  phenomena  by  means  of  them.  The  con- 
stant repetition  of  this  relation  and  the  important  uses  to  which 
it  is  applied  add  incidental  strength  to  the  positive  arguments  for 
regarding  it  as  an  intuition  of  the  intellect. 

1.  The  first  application  which  we  notice  is  that  which  is  made 
by  metaphysical  science  itself.  We  have  already  inskted  on  its 
importance  in  sustaining  the  metaphysical  axioms  of  Induction. 
Upon  this  we  need  not  dwell. 

Its  application  in  the  formation  and  arrangement  of  those  gen- 
eral conceptions  which  are  at  once  the  materials  and  the 
conditions  of  all  science,  is  of  equal  consequence,  though  perhaps 
not  equally  obvious. 

(a.)  The  principle  of  final  cause  regulates  the  formation  of 
concepts.  We  have  already  seen  that  so  far  as  the  form  of  the 
concept  is  concerned,  it  is  by  abstraction  or  analysis  that  we 
separate  the  qualities  or  attributes  of  existing  beings,  and  by 
synthesis  unite  them  into  new  and  generalized  products.  These 
processes  regulate  the  form  but  not  the  import  of  the  concept. 
We  are  not  at  liberty  to  select  any  attributes  which  analy- 
sis gives  us  and  to  unite  them  into  any  complex  notion  which 
they  might  form.  Some  are  adapted  by  logical  compatibility  to 
be  conjoined,  while  others  are  not  so  fitted. 


§316.  DESIGN   OR   FINAL   CAUSE.  513 

But  again :  not  all  the  attributes  which  are  logically  compati- 
ble are,  in  fact,  united  into  concepts  by  any  earnest  thinker.  The 
centaur,  the  mermaid,  the  hippogriff,  are  logically  possible,  but 
not  actual.  Why  ?  Because  the  properties  or  attributes  which 
constitute  them  are  not  adapted  to  exist  together  in  the  same  be- 
ing, and,  of  course,  except  for  the  service  of  the  fancy,  are  never 
combined.  There  is  something  in  these  properties,  or  in  what 
they  represent,  which  fits  them  to  co-exist,  or  they  could  not  with 
any  reason  be  combined  in  a  concept  which  connects  the  rational 
and  real ;  which  represents  things  as  actual  or  possible,  or  con- 
templates them  as  designed  to  be  under  existing  powers  or  laws. 

(5.)  The  same  principle  must  be  assumed  in  the  arrangement 
of  a  system  of  concepts  as  genera  and  species. 

It  is  evident,  that  as  we  might  make  as  many  concepts  as  the  va- 
ried aggregations  of  single  attributes  would  allow,  so  these  might 
be  arranged  into  as  many  genera  and  species  as  the  fertile  Jaw 
of  permutation  and  combination  would  permit.  Any  one  attri- 
bute might  be  taken  as  generic  without  regard  to  its  actual 
extent  in  nature ;  with  this  any  other  might  be  combined  ai<  a 
differentia  without  regard  to  the  compatibility  of  the  two  as  pro- 
vided by  the  adaptations  of  nature's  laws.  It  is  contended  by 
some,  that  in  the  classifications  which  we  actually  make,  we  are 
guided  by  mere  convenience,  that  we  can  make  any  attribute  ge- 
neric which  we  please,  provided  it  be  more  extensive  than  its 
differentia  in  its  actual  prevalence,  but  that  there  are  no  such 
things  as  real  genera  and  species ;  these  terms  having  no  meaning 
in  such  an  application.  If  we  assume  that  there  are  no  affinities 
or  adaptations  in  properties  and  laws,  and  no  ends  to  which 
the  powers  of  nature  are  adapted,  and  which  are  designed  to  be 
permanent,  this  view  is  correct.  But  the  moment  we  assume  that 
such  adaptations  exist,  and  that  they  can  be  discovered  by  ob- 
servation and  induction,  then  the  belief  in  permanent  classes  is 
justified  and  explained. 

(c.)  This  relation  is  essential  to  an  intelligible  conception  and 
definition  of  an  individual. 

(d.)  The  principle  is  of  the  greatest  value  as  a  criterion 
of  truth  and  a  rule  of  certitude.  When  skepticism  suggests  that 
every  principle  may  be  questioned,  and  every  observation  of  fact 
may  be  mistaken;  that  the  objective  creation  mav  be  a  shifting 

22* 


514  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  317. 

phantasmagoria,  and  the  subjective  mind  but  a  lying  glass  of 
opinion;  then  the  thought  of  the  inconceivable  non-adaptation 
of  such  a  universe  to  any  rational  end  even  of  knowledge,  re- 
stores our  confidence  in  the  testimony  of  the  senses,  the  experi- 
ences of  consciousness,  and  the  inductions  of  thought.  We  try 
all  these  indeed  by  one  another,  after  the  tests  which  experience 
and  science  have  discovered,  but  we  trust  them  only  when  they 
conspire  to  ends  that  are  worthy  of  rational  order  in  a  universe 
adapted  to  be  known  by  a  being  who  is  manifestly  designed  to 
know,  and  to  confide  in  his  knowledge  when  it  is  properly  tested 
and  proved. 

§  317.  2.  In  the  Mathematics  even,  the  presence 
S"  of  this  relation  is  recognized. 

dedun.  an  In  pure  geometry  it  may  be  applied  more  fre- 
quently than  would  be  anticipated.  The  circle  is 
adapted  to  prove  a  great  variety  of  theorems,  and  to  solve  many 
problems,  as  is  exemplified  in  any  treatise  on  geometry.  If  we  are 
required  to  construct  two  triangles  on  the  same  base,  the  angles 
of  which  at  the  apex  of  each  shall  be  right  angles,  it  can  readily 
be  done  by  describing  a  half-circle  on  this  line  as  a  diameter,  and 
any  number  of  triangles  can  at  once  be  drawn  so  as  to  fulfill  the 
required  conditions.  We  discern  in  a  portion  of  space  bounded 
by  a  half-circle,  this  capacity  or  adaptation,  that  waited  long  to 
be  discerned. 

The  relations  of  pure  number  open  as  wide  a  field  of  inherent 
fitnesses  to  serve  the  ends  of  the  student.  It  is  upon  the  faith  that 
additional  adaptations  remain  to  be  discerned  that  the  mathema- 
tician prosecutes  his  work  of  inventive  discovery. 

The  adaptations  of  the  mathematics  to  the  service  of  physics 
are  if  possible  still  more  striking.  No  projectile  was  ever  thrown 
in  an  exact  parabola ;  yet  the  theory  of  this  curve  is  adapted  to 
explain  the  direction  and  motion  of  every  body  that  is  launched 
into  the  atmosphere.  The  theory  of  the  lines  in  which  bodies 
tend  to  move,  and  the  rates  in  which  bodies  move  in  fact 
when  impelled,  is  adapted  to  regulate  the  mechanics  of  bodies  as 
they  fall  to  the  earth,  and  the  motions  of  the  orbs  which  revolve 
in  the  heavens.  It  also  explains  the  phenomena  of  the  pressure 
of  fluids.  The  relations  of  number  solve  the  mystery  of  chemi- 
cal combinations :  they  explain  the  symmetry  of  agreeable  forms 


§  318.  DESIGN   OR   FINAL   CAUSE.  515 

and  the  harmony  of  musical  sounds.  They  enable  us  to  discern 
a  common  law  in  the  arrangement  of  the  leaves  upon  the  stem 
of  every  tree,  and  in  the  placing  of  the  planets  along  the  lines 
which  stretch  out  from  the  sun. 

On  the  first  thought,  it  would  seem  that  in  extension  and 
number  it  wouM  be  impossible  to  find  so  great  a  variety  of  possi- 
ble adaptations.  But  on  reflection,  we  find  that  their  capacity  of 
multiform  application  is  the  only  key  to  the  perfection  of  the  sciences 
of  matter  and  the  reduction  of  its  forces  to  unvarying  laws. 

We  have  urged  that  the  belief  in  final  cause  must  be  intuitive, 
because  we  could  not  otherwise  confide  in  the  axioms  of  induc- 
tion. But  we  see  in  the  provision  for  the  possibility  of  mathe- 
matical science,  and  of  its  universal  application  to  material 
phenomena  as  the  indispensable  condition  of  their  laws,  another 
example  of  design  where  we  had  least  expected  its  manifestations, 
viz.,  in  those  time  and  space  relations  which  render  the  mathe- 
matics possible. 

§  318.  3.  Geology  and  Paleontology  both  assume 
the  truth  and  applicability  of  the  principle  of  final 
cause. 

Geology  was  at  first  content  to  explain  the  formation  of  the 
crust  of  the  globe  by  analyzing  its  parts  into  their  constituent 
elements,  and  recording  the  order  in  which  the  rocks  had  been 
compacted  and  broken  down,  and  the  strata  had  been  formed  and 
deposited.  In  these  investigations  it  proceeded  as  a  science  of 
observation,  watching  and  recording  the  operations  of  the  forces 
of  nature  according  to  laws  already  ascertained. 

But,  aided  by  paleontology,  geology  has  proposed  to  itself  a 
higher  problem,  and  contemplated  facts  under  more  elevated  re- 
lations. It  has  traced  a  plan,  and  order  of  development  resting 
on  the  assumption  of  a  series  of  ends  subordinated  to  one  another, 
and  terminating  in  a  habitation  equally  adapted  to  man's  higher 
and  lower  nature.  It  has  ventured  to  recall  the  successive 
phases  of  organic  life  by  reproducing  extinct  species  of  plants 
and  animals  amid  the  lakes,  marshes  and  jungles  in  which  they 
sported  and  from  which  they  subsisted,  and  to  arrange  these 
phases  in  the  order  of  time  and  of  a  more  and  more  perfect  de- 
velopment. The  assumption  which  has  directed  these  bold  essays 
and  enabled  the  geologist  successfully  to  apply  the  hints  fur- 


516  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §319 

nished  by  facts  observed,  is,  that  an  order  of  fitness  and  progress 
has  been  followed  from  the  first,  and  every  epoch  has  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  next  succeeding ;  the  adaptations  of  each 
being  complete  in  animals,  plants,  and  scenery.  Following  the 
same  clue,  this  science  has  found  in  each  previous  epoch,  not 
merely  the  materials  of  the  one  which  succeeded,  but  the  ex- 
istence of  a  less  perfectly  developed  form  of  life.  This  series 
terminates  with  man,  who  not  only  represents  the  highest  type 
of  life,  but  shows  that  he  is  the  end  for  which  all  others  are 
designed,  by  the  fact  that  he  alone  can  comprehend  the  import 
of  the  plan  and  recognize  the  relations  of  the  parts  to  the  whole, 
and  of  the  whole  to  himself. 

Geology,  by  the  very  aims  which  it  proposes,  and  the  splendid 
results  which  it  has  achieved,  gives  its  tacit  yet  fervent  assent  to 
the  original  authority  of  the  intuition  of  final  cause. 

Applied  in  ge-  §  319'  4<  Philosophical  Geography  gives  a  similar 
{Jgraphy  and  testimony.  This  science,  as  conceived  and  perfected 
by  Hitter,  takes  the  earth  where  geology  leaves  it, 
and  shows  how  each  continent  and  country  was  fitted  for  the 
part  which  it  has  played  in  the  world's  history,  by  its  structure, 
surface,  soil,  and  climate,  by  its  mountain  barriers  to  repel,  and 
its  coasts  and  harbors  to  invite ;  by  its  river-systems  to  bind  re- 
moter portions,  and  its  insular  situation  to  facilitate  defence.  It 
shows  that  every  part  of  the  earth  was  not  only  adapted  from 
the  first  to  receive  and  develop  the  race  which  was  allotted  to  it, 
and  to  become  the  scene  of  events  which  have  made  it  memora- 
ble, but  to  transmit  the  results  of  these  achievements  to  neigh- 
boring countries  and  other  races,  and  even  to  transfer  them  to 
remote  parts  of  the  earth  and  a  later  and  better  civilization.  By 
referring  intellectual  and  moral  influences  to  favoring  physical 
conditions,  it  enables  us  to  find  an  adaptation  to  important  moral 
results,  even  in  the  physical  arrangements  of  the  earth. 

The  Philosophy  of  History  also  must  assume  that  the  events  of 
human  history,  have  occurred  in  obedience  to  definite  laws  regu- 
lating constant  forces.  Whatever  these  forces  may  be  called — 
or  whatever  may  be  the  law  of  their  action,  the  historian  cannot 
seek  to  interpret  or  explain  them  without  believing  that  there 
are  definite  aims  toward  which  these  forces  tend,  and  after  which 
they  are  regulated. 


§  321.  DESIGN   OR   FINAL   CAUSE.  517 

§  320.  5.  Comparative  Anatomy  rests  upon  the 
same  intuition.  It  could  have  no  meaning,  as  it 
would  have  no  truth  without  it.  It  is  a  science  of 
similar  adaptations,  not  only  of  organs  to  functions, 
but  of  analogies  of  form  and  feature  and  inner  structure  to  the 
completeness  of  a  progressive  plan,  and  even  to  the  achievement 
of  an  aesthetic  effect  and  the  expression  of  an  aesthetic  import. 
Give  this  science  a  bone,  and  it  will  draw  or  model  the  animal, 
tell  you  how  large  he  was,  how  formed,  on  what  he  lived,  what 
were  his  habits  and  disposition,  what  the  length  of  his  life, — just 
so  far  as  it  reads  the  adaptations  that  gather  and  cluster 
around  this  fragment  of  a  skeleton,  which  except  as  thus  inter- 
preted were  only  a  broken  and  abraded  fossil. 

6.  In  Physiology,  special  and  general,  similar  relations  are 
more  numerous  and  manifest.  The  departments  of  animal  and 
vegetable  life  abound,  or  rather  overflow  with  examples  of 
fitness  and  adjustment.  The  nicer  the  analysis  of  elements  and 
of  organs,  and  the  more  subtle  the  detection  of  offices  and  func- 
tions, so  much  the  more  exquisite  are  the  discerned  relations  of 
adaptation  of  each  to  each.  Not  only  is  there  seen  a  fitness  of 
one  organ  to  another, — as  of  the  lungs  to  the  heart, — and  to  the 
common  end  of  all,  but  there  is  a  fitness  of  every  organ  to  the 
element  in  and  by  which  it  acts, — as  of  the  lungs  to  the  air  nnd 
of  the  eye  to  the  light.  The  more  we  learn  of  the  structure  of 
the  one  and  of  the  properties  of  the  other,  the  nicer  are  the 
adaptations  which  we  discern  between  the  two. 

The  adaptations  of  the  body  of  man  to  the  functions  and  uses 
of  the  rational  soul,  are  still  more  striking;  but  we  here  approach, 
if  we  do  not  cross,  the  line  which  divides  physiology  from  An- 
thropology. 

§  321.    7.   In  Anthropology  we  trace  these  higher 
adaptations.     The  human  hand  does  not  differ  more  tropology  ;'vn~ 
strikingly  from  the  hand  of  the  monkey  than  the 
mind  of  the  monkey  from  the  mind  of  man.     The  mind  of  man 
has  endeavored  to  discover  and  combine  the  powers  of  nature, 
and  to  Hevise  the  appliances  of  art.     Whatever  the  mind  has 
prompted  the  hand  to  construct,  the  hand   has   been    able   to 
frame,  either  through  the  seemingly  exhaustless  versatility  of  its 
flexible  organism,  or  by  the  tools  and  machinery  with  which  it 


518  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  321. 

has  contrived  to  supplement  its  powers.  So  wonderful  has  been 
this  service,  that  it  has  been  questioned,  whether  the  human  in- 
tellect or  the  human  hand  has  been  the  most  conspicuous  in 
shaping  human  destiny  and  in  developing  human  history.  The 
hand  has  also  by  the  economy  of  nature  been  fitted  to  be  the 
medium  of  conveying  varied  intellectual  and  emotional  expres- 
sion to  the  intellect  and  heart,  which  have  been  as  'mysteriously 
fitted  to  receive  and  interpret  its  indications.  The  hand  invites 
and  repels,  commands  and  forbids,  soothes  and  enrages.  It  ap- 
peases with  its  gentle  waving,  and  smites  with  its  ferocious  energy. 
It  adores,  with  the  uplifted  arm,  it  blesses  with  the  outspread 
palm;  it  blasphemes  with  aimless  and  impotent  motions,  and 
curses  v/ith  its  downward  stroke. 

But  there  is  no  adaptation  of  the  mind  and  body 
eJns^for^and  that  gives  to  Jooth  united,  an  interest  which  at  once 
of  iauguaage!ies  so  fascinates  and  baffles  our  prying  scrutiny,  as  that 
exhibited  in  the  agency  of  both  in  the  production, 
use,  and  development  of  language.  There  are  two  conditions  of 
language,  the  bodily  and  the  mental.  The  bodily  are  also  two, 
the  mouth  and  the  ear,  to  which  the  hand  and  the  eye  are  acces- 
sory. But  for  expression  the  mind  must  also  furnish  the  material 
through  its  required  capacities  and  development.  Language  is 
impossible  until  the  mind  observes  and  generalizes  and  affirms. 
The  mind  must  first  think  the  material  and  spiritual  universe 
with  which  it  comes  in  contact,  into  the  thought-world  which 
its  powers  and  laws  fit  it  to  create,  before  it  can  give  to  it 
expression  by  language.  This  adaptation  of  the  vocal  and  the 
spiritual  to  each  other,  and  of  the  possible  elaboration  of  the  one 
to  the  possible  refinement  of  the  other,  go  far  beyond  any 
observed  fitness  of  the  eye  to  the  light,  or  of  the  ear  to  the  agent 
of  sound.  Not  only  are  these  two  parts  of  the  complex  body 
and  soul  fitted  to  expand  side  by  side  with  one  another,  but  the 
expression  of  thought  in  language  reacts  with  wondrous  energy 
on  the  development  and  refinement  of  thought  itself,  so  that  it  is 
not  only  true  that  the  developed  thought  finds  itself  able  to  em- 
ploy language  in  its  service,  but  it  is  also  true  that  the  thought  in 
order  to  be  developed,  must  express  itself  in  language.  Man  not 
only  »peaks  because  he  thinks,  but  he  speaks  in  order  that  he  may 
think,  i.  e.,  think  with  clearness,  precision  and  progress.  The 


§322.  DESIGN   OK   FINAL   CAUSE.  519 

two  are  not  merely  so  adapted  that  the  one  can  expand  side  by 
side  with  the  other,  but  it  is  difficult  to  say  which  is  the  most 
dependent  on  the  other. 

The  celebrated  Galen  says,  in  his  treatise  concerning  the 
human  body,  that  by  the  variety  and  accordant  action  of  its  ad- 
justments, it  seems  to  utter  an  anthem  of  praise  to  its  Maker, 
But  the  philosopher  who  reflects  on  the  mystery  of  human  lan- 
guage, in  the  subtlety  of  the  elements  involved,  the  variety  of 
the  conjunctions,  the  delicacy  of  the  structure,  and  the  capacities 
for  growth  and  development,  might  find,  as  he  watches  in  the 
lispings  of  infancy  the  feeble  beginnings  of  such  splendid  results, 
a  new  meaning  in  the  familiar  words  "  Out  of  the  mouths  of  babes 
and  sucklings  thou  hast  perfected  praise." 

§  322.    8.    In    Psychology  the  manifestations  of 
final  cause  are  more  frequent  and  obvious  than  in  psychology! 
either  physiology  or  anthropology. 

It  is  now  and  then  difficult  for  consciousness  to  analyze  its 
operations  under  the  relations  of  efficient  causation,  or  to  trace 
each  product  back  to  the  separate  force  from  which  it  springs 
into  being.  But  the  adaptations  of  these  operations  and  products 
to  one  another,  and  to  the  manifest  ends  of  the  soul's  culture 
and  well  being  are  often  so  obvious  and  remarkable,  that  they 
partially  settle  questions  that  would  otherwise  remain  unsolved. 
For  example,  in  considering  the  acquired  perceptions,  we  find 
that  animals  possess  from  the  beginning,  a  capacity  of  judging 
of  distance  and  size  which  man  is  forced  to  acquire  by  slow  and 
painful  effort.  We  question  whether  our  observations  can  be 
trusted,  whether  there  is  not  some  error  or  oversight  in  the 
analysis  of  the  phenomena.  The  consideration  of  the  end  to  be 
accomplished  by  this  arrangement  relieves  the  difficulty.  Man, 
we  observe,  needs  the  discipline  required  by  the  slow  process  of 
acquiring  what  the  animal  knows  at  the  beginning.  The  con- 
sideration of  adaptation  removes  the  similar  difficulties  suggested 
by  the  question,  "why  the  range  of  instinct  is  so  much  wid-r 
and  more  unerring  in  the  lower  animals  than  it  is  in  man,  the 
highest  of  all?"  When  we  consider  the  diversity  of  the  destiny 
and  ends  of  the  two  we  accept  with  less  hesitation  the  evidence 
which  observation  furnishes. 

Above  all,  psychology  acquaints  us  with  the  rational  faculty 


520  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §323. 

as  that  pre-eminent  power  which  proposes  ends  and  devises  means 
for  their  accomplishment.  It  acknowledges  that  this  is  the 
highest  of  the  intellectual  powers,  that  it  is  lawfully  supreme,  that 
in  the  service  of  this  power  we  investigate  causes  and  determine 
their  laws.  In  the  subjection  and  adaptation  of  the  lower 
powers  to  this  highest  of  all  it  finds  confirmation  of  the  propriety 
of  assuming  the  relation  of  adaptation  in  all  our  interpretations 
of  nature.  If  "  on  the  earth  there  is  nothing  great  but  man, 
and  in  man,  there  is  nothing  great  but  mind,"  it  is  emphatically 
true  that  in  the  mind  there  is  nothing  great  but  the  reason  which 
proposes  and  discovers  ends,  and  is  itself  an  end  to  the  lower 
actings  of  the  intellect. 

§  323.     (9.)  Ethics,  the  science  of  duty,  which  is 

Applied  and  ^ 

.assumed  in  so  closely  allied  to,  if  it  is  not  a  department  of  psy- 
chology, is  founded  entirely  upon  the  intuition  in 
question.  Its  subject-matter  is  derived  from  the  ends  of  human 
existence  and  human  activity.  The  comprehensive  and  funda- 
mental question  which  it  asks,  is,  for  what  kind  of  activities  is  the 
human  soul  adapted  by  its  constitution,  and  what  must  man 
be  and  do  to  fulfil  these  ends  of  his  being  ?  In  these  inquiries, 
it  rests  on  the  single  assumption  that  man  is  fitted  for  one 
kind  of  activity  rather  than  for  another,  and  that  the  action 
for  which  he  is  fitted  is  right,  while  the  action  for  whi-ch 
he  is  not  fitted  is  wrong.  It  asks,  how  shall  these  adapta- 
tions be  discovered?  By  what  faculty  or  capacity,  one  or 
more,  are  they  discerned  and  responded  to?  What  are  the  tests 
or  criteria  by  which  they  are  distinguished?  What  external 
actions  or  duties  must  we  perform  in  order  most  effectually  to 
fulfil  these  several  ends  of  our  being  ? 

Corresponding  to  the  power  of  apprehending  duty,  is  the 
faculty  of  will  or  choice  qualifying  man  to  fulfil  the  ends  for  which 
he  exists.  The  existence  of  this  power,  its  importance  to  human 
development  and  responsibility,  and  the  necessity  that  it  should  be 
defended  in  its  integrity,  explain  the  necessity  of  moral  trial,  and 
the  possibility  of  moral  evil — under  the  one  relation  of  the  ends 
which  the  possession  of  this  power  and  the  exposures  which  it 
involves  are  adapted  to  fulfil. 

The  adaptations  with  which  ethics  has  to  do,  are  chiefly  psy- 
ehical,  and  suppose  a  spiritual  organism  in  the  soul — a  system  of 


§324  DESIGN   OR   FINAL   CAUSE.  521 

internal  adaptations  in  the  several  powers  with  which  it  is 
endowed,  which  indicate  our  duties  and  our  obligations.  These 
all  look  toward  moral  perfection.  To  this  the  soul  is  adapted  and 
to  it  it  tends  and  is  impelled.  Without  this  intuition  and  faith 
in  its  truth,  ethics  can  have  no  meaning  and  duty  no  authority. 
If  reason  as  proposing  ends  is  the  highest  ruling  power  in  man, 
then  the  reason,  when  it  discovers  and  proposes  the  highest  moral 
ends,  exercises  its  loftiest  functions,  and  reigns  sovereign  over 
the  inner  and  outer  world  by  a  self-justified  authority. 

§  324.     10.    In  Theology,  or  the  science  of  God, 
whether  natural  or  revealed,  this   principle   is   of    theoiogy.lon 
supreme  importance.      The   most   of   the  so-called 
demonstrations  of  the   being   of   God,   find   their   material   or 
grounds  of  proof  in  the  indications  of  design  that  are  furnished  in 
the  material  universe. 

These   arguments    are    usually   stated    somewhat 

-r\      •  T  t  rr\  The  common 

thus :    Design   proves   or  implies  a  designer ;    The  argument  for 

i       .        T      .  r™  •  the  Divino  ex- 

uni verse  abounds  in  design ;    Inereiore  the  universe  istence. 
implies  or  proves  a  designer :  or,  order  and  adapta- 
tion imply  a  designer ;    The   universe   abounds   in   order   and 
adaptation ;  Therefore  a  designer  exists. 

The  major  premise  in  this  argument  is  obviously  assumed  or 
received  as  a  priori.  The  minor  is  a  statement  of  fact  grounded 
on  observation  or  induction.  Those  who  employ  this  argument 
would  not  accept  the  view,  that  the  belief  that  adaptation  prevails 
throughout  the  universe  is  a  first  truth  or  axiom  of  thought 
They  rest  their  belief  upon  observation,  and  they  search  through 
the  universe  to  discover  instances  of  the  presence  of  this  rela- 
tion. Having  observed  a  sufficient  number,  they  generalize 
them  by  induction,  and  then  apply,  as  the  minor  premise  of  their 
syllogism,  the  proposition  which  they  have  established  by  this 
cumulative  evidence. 

We  have  sought  to  prove  that  the  proposition  affirming  final 
causes  is  a  first  principle  or  intuitive  truth  ;  that  it  is  not  in  any 
sense  dependent  on  observation,  but  is  an  original  and  necessary 
belief  or  category ;  that  so  far  from  being  derived  from  induc- 
tion, it  is  the  necessary  ground  on  which  induction  itself  must 
rest  for  its  validity  and  application. 

Those  who  accept  the  relation  of  final  cause  as  necessary  and  a 


522  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  324. 

priori  may  be  grouped  under  two  leading  classes  or  divisions,  ac- 
cording as  the  adherents  of  each  reject  or  accept  the  belief  of  a 
personal  God.  The  one  class  believe  in  an  immanent  force,  which 
involves  no  relation  to  any  thing  beyond  the  universe  as  a  whole. 
They  fully  accept  the  truth  that  design  rules"  throughout  nature. 
They  find  examples  of  the  relation  of  final  cause  everywhere  pre- 
sent. But  they  insist  that  these  do  not  necessarily  carry  the 
thoughts  out  of  nature:  Final  cause  or  design  is  a  force  in 
nature  itself,  immanent  in  each  separate  object,  and  in  all 
existing  objects  taken  as  an  organism  of  parts  mutually  related 
and  connected. 

Those  who  hold  this  doctrine,  concede  that  adaptation  prevails 
in  nature,  and  must  be  assumed  to  explain  its  powers  and  opera- 
tions ;  also,  that  it  works  in  every  case  as  though  a  personal 
mind  had  contrived  these  ends  and  the  relations  which  they  in- 
volve, and  continues  to  direct  them.  But  they  urge  that  we  are 
not  compelled  to  ascribe  this  adaptation  to  a  personal  being,  but 
may  refer  it  to  an  impersonal,  unconscious,  unthinking  force, 
as  blind  and  unintelligent  as  the  efficient  forces  that  act  by  me- 
chanical laws. 

The  second  class  contend  that  the  necessary  correlate 
to  adaptation  is  a  designing  miud :  They  conceive  of  adap- 
tation as  the  objective  relation  to  which  thought  is  an 
essential  supplement.  Adaptation  does  not  prove  or  in- 
dicate design,  but  it  rationally  implies  it ;  if,  therefore,  the 
adaptation  is  real,  so  is  the  designing  mind.  In  assuming  the 
one  truth  by  an  a  priori  necessity,  you  must  accept  the  other. 
The  belief  in  adapted  things  both  logically  and  really  carries 
with  itself  the  belief  in  adapting  thought  and  an  adaptive  thinker. 
The  mind  need  not  necessarily  think  of  the  two  at  the  same  in- 
stant, or  in  the  same  connection.  The  attention  may  be  so  con- 
centrated upon  the  adaptation  objectively  considered,  its  inge- 
nuity, the  variety  of  the  means  employed,  the  intricacy  and  order 
of  the  combinations  required,  that  it  does  not  consciously  refer  to 
the  correlate,  but  this  fact  does  not  prove  that  it  is  not  necessarily 
involved.  For  example :  in  a  machine  of  human  devising,  an 
ingenious  mind  can  discern  very  many  adaptations,  without  ad- 
verting to  the  mind  which  produced  them,  or  distinctly  recog- 
nizing the  fact  that  it  proceeded  from  any  thought ;  but  as  soon 


§  324.  DESIGN   OR   FINAL   CAUSE.  523 

as  it  raises  the  question  and  reflects  on  the  relation,  it  cannot  but 
assent  to  the  additional  truth. 

The  application  of  this  principle  in  the  service  of  Natural 
Theology  raises  still  another  question ;  viz.,  What  relation  has 
efficient  to  final  causation  in  the  universe  ?  Does  each  require  its 
separate  principle  or  agent,  or  do  both  united  direct  us  to  one  ? 
Does  the  adapting  agent  simply  take  the  efficient  forces  and  laws 
of  the  universe  as  it  finds  them,  and  arranging  them  as  best  it 
may,  bring  out  of  them  the  wisest  results  to  which  its  sagacity 
may  adapt  them,  or  does  it  also  originate  the  forces  which  it  ar- 
ranges and  combines?  The  one  view  gives  the  eternity  of 
matter,  with  its  hindrances  and  limitations  and  possibilities  of 
evil,  making  the  Deity  a  Demiurgos  or  Plastic  energy.  The 
other  makes  the  originator  and  the  arranger  to  be  the  same 
power  and  the  same  mind.  The  one  view  is  the  cruder  theism  of 
Ancient  Philosophy,  the  other  the  purer  theism  of  the  Jewish  and 
Christian  Scriptures. 

It  would  carry  us  too  far  from  our  appropriate  theme  to  argue 
here  the  question  between  the  two.  The  discussion  of  it  belongs 
to  a  treatise  on  Natural  Theology.  Psychology  suggests  that 
the  analogy  of  the  human  soul,  which  combines  in  itself — under 
limits — a  creating  force  and  an  adapting  or  designing  force, 
furnishes  a  decisive  argument  in  favor  of  the  conclusion,  that  th* 
creator  and  thinker  is  One  Being. 


524  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  325. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

SUBSTANCE   AND   ATTRIBUTE:    MIND   AND   MATTER. 

§  325.     We    return  again    to   the  relation  of  Sub' 

Uses         and 

Etymoiogyof  stance  and  Attribute,  and  to  the  important  application 
of  it  in  the  determination  of  the  definitions  of  Mind 
and  Matter  and  of  Real  and  Phenomenal  Being.  The  relation  is  so 
fundamental  and  so  much  discussed  in  Psychology  and  Philoso- 
phy, as  to  require  a  careful  consideration. 

The  substance  or  substratum  with  which  we  have  to  do,  is  the 
Real  substance  or  substratum.  As  such  it  should  be  carefully  dis- 
tinguished from  the  logical  substance  or  subject.  A  logical  sub- 
ject is  any  thing  which  is  conceived  in  thought  as  a  substance 
with  attributes,  whether  it  does  or  does  not  exist  in  fact.  Tims 
any  abstractum  can  be  treated  in  thought  and  described  in  lan- 
guage as  though  it  had  real  being,  and  were  endowed  with  real 
attributes.  The  concepts  power,  goodness,  responsibility,  represen- 
tation, republic,  wages,  wealth,  or  any  other  abstract  notion,  may 
be  conceived  in  thought  and  treated  in  language  as  having  prop- 
erties or  qualities  which  are  affirmed  of  each  as  though  it  were 
a  real  being.  Real  substance  ought  also  to  be  distinguished  from 
£he  grammatical  subject.  The  grammatical  subject  is  any  w\>rd 
which  is  used  in  language  as  though  it  denoted  a  logical  subject. 

The  concepts,  substance  and  attribute,  cannot  be  resolved  by  the 
etymology  of  the  terms  which  designate  them.  The  words  sub- 
ject, substance,  substratum,  have  a  common  derivation  which 
literally  imports  something  standing  or  lying  under,  and  implies 
that  there  is  something  placed  above  or  upon  it  which  may  be  re- 
moved. This  suggests  the  impression  that  the  attributes  are  su- 
perinduced upon  the  substance,  as  folds  or  wrappings  are  thrown 
over  or  around  a  nucleus  or  core  within.  This  prompts  to  the  effort 
to  lay  off  the  covering,  to  separate  the  wrappings  from  the  nucleus 
which  they  invest,  to  scale  off  the  laminse  or  folds,  and  find  the 
substance  or  substratum  within  or  beneath,  bare  of  all  qualities 
and  relations.  But  the  attempt  to  lay  aside  qualities  in  order  to 
find  their  subject  is  soon  discovered  to  be  vain.  It  is  as  though 


§  326.     SUBSTANCE  AND  ATTRIBUTE  I    MIND  AND  MATTER.          525 

one  should  cut  down  the  trees  in  order  to  find  the  forest.  It  is 
found  to  be  impossible  to  discover  an  actually  existing  subject 
without  attributes.  The  simplest  and  barest  object  in  the  uni- 
verse— that  which  in  its  nature  is  the  most  uninteresting  and  the 
most  undistinguished — as  the  mote  in  a  sunbeam,  the  minutest 
perceptible  grain  of  sand,  the  atom  or  molecule  which  the  physi- 
cist cannot  perceive,  the  monad  of  which  the  metaphysician  con- 
fidently speculates — must  always  be  conceived  as  having  place 
and  form,  and  as  involving  the  relations  of  extension  and  force. 

The  etymology  and  use  of  the  terms  attribute,  quality,  property, 
and  accident  do  not  give  us  any  greater  satisfaction  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  distinction.  The  term  attribute  simply  directs  the 
attention  to  the  fact  that  we  attribute  to,  or  affirm  of,  a  being, 
something  which  we  distinguish  from  itself;  but  it  does  not  in 
the  least  explain  what  we  distinguish  or  that  from  which  it  is 
distinguished.  Quality  is  a  term  of  classification  merely,  i.  e.,  it 
signifies  that  the  being  is  of  a  certain  class,  without  explaining 
why  it  belongs  to  the  class  in  question.  Property  indicates,  that 
what  we  thus  attribute  or  affirm  belongs  peculiarly  or  properly  to 
the  being  or  substance,  and  accident  that  it  belongs  to  it  occa- 
sionally. These  different  words  are  only  different  names  for  the 
same  conception,  as  differently  used.  But  their  etymology  or 
application  throw  no  light  upon  the  conception  itself,  or  how  it 
originates,  or  why  it  is  distinguished  from  its  correlate  substance. 

We  learn,  moreover,  that  we  can  no  more  find  an  attribute 
without  substance,  than  we  can  find  a  substance  without  attri- 
butes. We  cannot  separate  length  from  something  which  is  long, 
nor  color  from  something  colored,  nor  thought  from  a  thinking 
being,  nor  joy  from  a  rejoicing  being.  The  two  conceptions  are 
never  parted  in  the  world  of  real  existence.  They  are  not  merely 
correlated  by  a  logical  necessity,  but  they  are  always  inseparably 
conjoined  in  actual  existence. 

§  326,  But  though  substance  and  attribute  do  not  Snbstftnce  and 
exist  apart,  they  can  be  conceived  of  and  defined  as  J 
abstracted  from  one  another.  Abstractly  considered, 
the  concept,  substance, is  less  general  than  that  of  simple  being. 
Being  has  already  been  explained  as  every  object"  that  is,  or  that 
is  conceived  to  be,knowable  or  known.  But  every  thing  that  is 
known  is  not  only  known  to  be,  but  is  also  known  as  related. 


526  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  327. 

Hence,  with  every  act  of  knowledge,  the  concept  of  being  as  re- 
lated, at  once  arises  and  becomes  universally  applicable  to  every 
object  that  is  known.  Certain  of  these  relations  may  be  used  to 
distinguish,  define,  and  explain  these  knowable  objects.  Any 
being  with  relations  so  discerned  and  applied  as  to  distinguish  it 
from  other  beings,  is  conceived  as  a  substance,  i.  e. :  a  substance  is  a 
being  distinguishable  and  definable  by  a  complex  of  relations. 

The  conception  of  attribute  arises  in  a  similar  way.  As  soon 
as  an  object  is  discerned  in  a  definite  relation  to  another  object, 
this  relation  can  be  affirmed  of  or  attributed  to  this  object.  WhenN 
one  relation  or  more  is  applied  to  define  or  distinguish  any  one 
of  these  beings,  it  becomes  an  attribute,  as  used  in  this  generic 
and  technical  sense.  Every  relation  by  which  a  being  is  known  or 
distinguished  is  an  attribute. 

It  deserves  to  be  noticed  here  that  there  are  also  as  many 
different  substances  as  there  are  beings  distinguishable  in  kind  by 
combinations  of  relations.  An  individual  substance  is  known 
only  by  the  individual  relations  which  it  shares  with  no  other. 
The  substance  is  not,  however,  made  up  or  constituted,  by  its  rela- 
tions. It  is  not  the  same  thing  as  a  collection  of  attributes.  It  is 
distinguished  and  defined  only  by  these  relations.  From  this 
it  is  manifest  that  the  category  of  substance  ajid  attribute  is 
not  simple  and  original  like  the  other  relations  or  categories 
which  we  have  considered,  but  is  complex  and  derived.  Any 
one  of  these  relations,  when  employed  for  the  ends  of  recog- 
nition or  description,  for  definition  or  classification,  for  reasoning 
or  explanation,  in  short,  for  knowledge  of  any  sort,  whether  com- 
mon or  scientific,  becomes  an  attribute.  Any  existing  thing,  when 
it  is  sufficiently  permanent  or  oft-recurring  to  require  to  be 
known  by  attributes,  is  called  a  substance. 

There  are  two  classes  of  objects-matter  to  which  this  category 
is  most  frequently  applied,  spiritual  substances  and  corporeil  sub- 
stances. Abstract  ideas,  or  abstracta,  follow  the  analogy  of  real 
beings,  and  so  do  grammatical  subjects.  Mathematical  entities 
do  the  same  so  far  as  this  relation  is  concerned.  We  shall  con- 
sider the  two  classes  which  are  here  named,  and  begin  with 
spiritual  or  mental  substance. 

Spiritual  or       §  327.     Here  we  encounter,  at  the  outset,  the  ob- 
jection or  difficulty  that  a  mental  or  spiritual  being 


mental      sub- 
stance. 


§  327.     SUBSTANCE  AND  ATTRIBUTE :   MIND  AND  MATTER.          52T 

cannot  be  a  substance  at  all.  This  difficulty  is  merely  verbal, 
and  is  of  purely  casual  association,  arising  simply  from  the 
fact  that  substance  more  frequently  implies  material  existence. 
Dismissing  this  objection  as  merely  verbal  and  superficial,  we 
proceed  to  inquire  in  what  sense  spirit  is  a  substance  and  what 
are  its  distinguishing  attributes,  especially  in  the  form  which  it 
assumes  as  the  human  soul. 

Our  previous  inquiries  have  taught  us  that  the  prominent  attri- 
butes of  the  substance  which  we  call  the  human  soul  are  its 
capacities  to  know,  to  feel,  and  to  will.  But  to  know,  to  feel,  to 
will,  are  operations  or  modes  of  activity  and  suffering.  These 
capacities  are  energies,  simply  causative  of  certain  effects,  or 
which  involve  energies  that  are  causative.  These  three  attri- 
butes obviously  fall  under  the  category  or  relation  of  causation. 

The  power  of  the  soul  to  be  conscious  of  its  acts  and  states 
is  also  a  capacity  for  causal  efficiency,  which  like  the  others  is 
known  by  its  exercise  and  its  results. 

But  we  know  more  of  the  substance  of  the  soul  than  that  it  is 
the  cause  or  recipient  of  those  effects  which  we  call  its  states. 
The  truth  is  established  by  consciousness  that  the  soul  knows  these 
acts  and  states  to  be  its  own,  i.  e.,  to  be  caused  or  suffered  by  the 
individual  ego,  or  self. 

These  states  and  products  of  the  soul's  causal  activity,  are 
transient  and  changing,  while  the  ego  is  permanent  and  enduring. 
As  the  cause  or  recipient  of  these  changes  the  soul  is  identical 
with  itself.  They  are  diverse,  the  soul  is  one.  The  psychical 
attributes  therefore  require  the  categories  of  identity,  diversity 
and  time,  as  well  as  that  of  causation. 

Besides  the  attributes  of  the  soul  which  are  revealed  in  con- 
sciousness, it  is  capable  of  acts  or  processes  of  which  it  is  conscious 
only  of  the  results  in  its  psychical  experience.  The  capacities  for 
these  results,  whether  the  results  are  dependent  on  psychical  or 
material  conditions,  are  also  causative,  and  are  therefore  properly 
classed  among  causative  attributes. 

Besides  the  relations  of  causation  there  are  relations  of  design 
which  pertain  to  the  soul.  These  are  conspicuous  both  in  the 
relations  of  one  power  and  act  of  the  soul  to  another,  and  also 
in  the  relations  of  the  soul  to  the  external  world  and  to  the  body 
which  connects  it  with  that  world.  All  of  these  relations  are 


528  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  328. 

attributes  of  the  soul ;  some  of  these,  however,  are  so  necessary 
to  an  adequate  conception  of  its  nature  as  to  deserve  to  be  con- 
sidered as  essential  and  distinguishing. 

We  find  then,  that  those  relations  of  the  individual  ego  by 
which  it  is  usually  defined,  are  its  capacities  to  do  and  to  suffer, 
to  know  and  attain  its  end  or  destiny,  and  these  attributes  are  all 
found  in  the  Categories  of  Causation  and  Design.  When  to 
these  we  add  its  relations  of  Identity  and  Time  we  complete  the 
cycle  of  its  attributes.  From  this  analysis  we  derive  the  fol- 
lowing definition :  That  Substance  which  we  call  the  Human  Soul, 
is  an  identical  enduring  self,  capable  of  spiritual  acts  and  states  in 
the  succession  of  time,  which  are  adapted  to  certain  ends  with  respect 
to  the  universe  of  being.  The  relation  of  substance  and  attribute, 
when  thus  applied,  is  that  of  a  being  and  of  certain  distinguishing 
or  essential  relations,  as  of  time,  identity,  causation  and  design, 
which  appertain  to  the  being. 

§  328.  A  material  substance,  again,  is,  like  spiritual 
Btauceeidefined.  substance,  a  being  discerned  or  discernible  by  intui- 
tive or  direct  knowledge  and  also  definable  by  a  suffi- 
cient variety  and  number  of  relations  to  distinguish  it  from  other 
beings.  These  relations  are  discerned  by  sense-perception  and 
consciousness,  and  are  generalized  by  thought.  A  Material  Sub- 
stance may  be  defined:  a  being  occupying  definite  limits  in  space, 
and  productive  of  specific  sensations  in  the  sentient  soulyon  occasion 
of  which  it  is  perceived  or  known  to  exist. 

First  of  all,  it  is  related  to  space  in  trinal  extension.  It  might 
be  urged  that,  in  one  sense,  the  spectrum  cast  by  the  camera  on 
a  screen,  or  the  rainbow  flung  athwart  a  cloud  are  material  sub- 
stances, with  only  superficial  or  binal  extension;  but  material 
substance,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  has  threefold  extension,  or,  as 
we  say,  extension  in  three  dimensions. 

Corporeal  substance  has  a  second  relation  to  space,  viz.,  that 
of  space-occupying  or  space-filling.      This  is  often  called  the 
solidity  or  impenetrability  of  matter,  but  should  be  carefully  dis- 
tinguished from  that  power  of  matter  to  awaken  the  sensation 
of  hardness,  which  is  also  called  solidity.     The  first  is  a  relation 
to  space  which  is  tested  and  expressed  by  the  application  of 
notion.     The  second  is  the  capacity  of  the  body  to  excite  a 
pecific  sensation  on  occasion  of  touch. 


§  328.     SUBSTANCE  AND  ATTRIBUTE :   MIND  AND  MATTEE.         529 

The  third  class  of  relations  which  belong  to  corporeal  substance 
are  its  powers  variously  to  affect,  through  the  senses,  the  body  as 
animated  and  ensouled,  and  also  the  soul  itself  as  a  sentient 
agent  Every  material  substance  has  power  to  produce  certain 
so-called  impressions  on  the  so-called  organs  of  sensation,  i.  e., 
upon  the  body  as  organized  to  receive  these  impressions.  Of 
these  effects,  the  vibration  of  the  tympanum,  and  the  formation 
of  the  image  on  the  retina,  are  examples.  These  may  occur 
without  sensation,  as  is  manifest  in  cases  of  disease,  of  mental 
excitement,  aud  the  use  of  anaesthetic  agents.  But  the  condition 
of  any  of  these  effects,  is  a  living  body.  Consequent  upon  these 
are  those  effects  upon  the  sensitive  or  sentient  soul  which  are 
called  sensations,  or  sensations  proper.  The  condition  of  the  last 
is  a  body  living  and  ensouled.  In  sensation,  or  the  sense-element 
of  the  complex  act  called  sense-perception,  the  soul  is  purely 
receptive,  or  passive,  and  the  material  substance  is  active.  Its 
various  powers  to  produce  these  sensations  are  all  compre- 
hended under  the  category  or  relation  of  causation. 

On  the  condition  of  the  experience  of  these  sensations  the  be- 
ing which  causes  them  is  known  to  exist  as  a  Non-ego.  But  the  pos- 
sibility of  being  perceived  is  in  itself  no  attribute  of  matter  in 
the  sense  of  being  a  causative  power.  To  perceive  is  an  act 
of  the  mind.  The  causative  energy  and  the  capacity  which  fits 
for  this  act,  both  pertain  to  the  mind  alone.  Matter,  so  far  as  it 
is  perceived,  acts  neither  upon  the  body  nor  the  soul.  Matter  is, 
i.  e.,  exists,  and  is  known  by  the  mind  to  be.  It  is  not  correct  to 
say,  that  it  is  known  only  as  the  cause  of  the  sensations  which  the 
soul  suffers  or  receives ;  making  it  to  be  known  only  as  the 
unknown  cause  of  a  felt  effect.  Rather,  it  is  known  to  be  and 
also  as  causing  these  sensations.  As  existing,  it  is  known  to  have 
other  relations  than  its  power  to  cause  sensations.  Space  is  a 
reality,  and  so  are  the  spatial  relations  of  matter  as  known.  To 
define  matter  with  J.  S.  Mill  (Logic,  I.,c.  3,  §7,)  as  "the  ex- 
ternal cause  to  which  we  ascribe  our  sensations,"  is  to  overlook 
entirely  these  relations  of  matter  to  space,  and  misinterpret  the 
act  of  knowledge  itself  To  say  that  "matter  may  be  defined  as  a 
permanent  possibility  01  sensation"  (Exam,  of  Ham.,  c.  xi.),is  to 
fall  into  a  irk/re  serious  error. 

Besides  the  relations  of  material  substances  to  space  and  to  the 
23 


530  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  329. 

animated  and  ensouled  body,  there  is  a  class  of  relations  which 
it  holds  to  other  bodies.  These  are  its  powers  to  produce  effects 
in  or  upon  them.  They  comprehend  all  the  properties  of  matter, 
whether  mechanical,  chemical,  or  organic,  which  have  as  yet 
been  discovered,  or  which  science  may  in  future  unfold.  That 
all  these  attributes  are  comprehended  under  the  causal  relation  is 
too  obvious  to  need  illustration  or  proof. 

The  relations  of  matter  thus  far  considered  are  those  of  space 
and  causation.  We  define  material  substance  by  means  of  these 
as  a  being  having  a  definite  form  or  outline  (involving  relations  to 
space  or  other  bodies  existing  in  space'),  occupying  exclusively 
some  portion  of  space  (involving  space-relations),  and  productive 
of  specific  sensations  in  the  sentient  soul  on  occasion  of  which  it  is 
known  to  be  (involving  relations  of  causation  and  objective  reality}. 

We  repeat  the  remark,  that  this  complex  or  collection  of  re- 
lations do  not  constitute  a  material  substance.  They  simply  in- 
dicate that  it  is  a  material  substance.  They  are  relations  which 
define  and  distinguish  it  as  such.  They  constitute  its  logical  es- 
sence only.  The  same  is  true  of  the  element  being  which  is  im- 
plied in  such  definition.  Being,  like  every  other  simple  notion, 
cannot  be  defined ;  but  it  does  not  follow,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  that  it  cannot  be  known  and  understood. 

§  329.     A  material  substance  has  been  defined  as 

Space  occupa- 
tion and  iden-  exclusively  occupying  a  portion  of  space.      It  is  not 

required  that  this  portion  of-  space  should  be  of  any 
definite  size  or  dimensions.  A  grain  of  sand  is  a  material  sub- 
stance; so  is  a  large  mass  of  sand-stone :  so  is  a  portion  of  water  or 
the  indefinitely  expanded  atmosphere.  All  that  is  required  is, 
that  the  mass,  be  it  greater  or  smaller,  should  be  so  fixed  and  held 
together  in  its  parts  as  to  occupy  continuously  their  defined  lim- 
its. The  continuity  of  parts  is  of  more  importance  than  the 
continuity  of  definite  outline.  This  continuity  or  coherence  of 
parts  is  maintained  in  different  substances  by  different  agencies. 
The  constituent  parts  may  be  held  together  by  simple  mechanical 
aggregation  under  the  force  of  cohesive  attraction.  They  may 
be  held  more  closely  by  the  polar  force  of  crystalline  arrange- 
ment. They  may  be  united  still  more  'atimately  under  the  laws 
of  chemical  affinity.  They  may  be  combined  and  assimilated 
into  the  forms  and  products  of  organic  existence ;  or  the  sub* 


§  330.     SUBSTANCE  AND  ATTRIBUTE  I    MIND  AND  MATTER.         531 

stance  may  be  conceived  as  an  ultimate  molecule,  or  a  simple 
cell.  Every  being  that  is  one  and  continuous,  of  whatever  size, 
in  whatever  form,  or  held  together  by  whatever  bond  of  union,  is 
a  material  substance. 

A  certain  continuity  in  time,  or  permanence,is  either  required 
as  a  defining  characteristic  of  substance,  or  is  implied  in  its  defi- 
nition. This  integrity  of  the  whole  is  presumed  as  having 
continued  and  as  likely  to  continue  for  some  considerable  period, 
or  the  being  indicated  would  scarcely  be  called  a  substance.  It 
certainly  would  not  be  worth  noticing  by  defining  attributes  if  it 
did  not  so  remain. 

The  relative  permanence  of  material  substance  explains  the 
conception  of  its  identity.  Identity  in  such  a  substance  may 
pertain  to  the  constituent  elements  only,  or  to  the  form  only,  or 
to  the  uniting  force,  or  it  may  be  applied  to  the  connection  of 
one  part  with  another  in  a  series  of  changes  which  involve  a 
total  alteration  of  both  constituents  and  form.  Thus  if  the  same 
particles  remain  united  in  the  same  form  by  mechanical  aggrega- 
tion, the  substance  is  eminently  the  same ;  the  only  diversity  in 
such  a  case  being  that  of  relation  to  other  substances — a 
diversity  of  time  or  place  or  both.  Should  the  constituents  re- 
main the  same  and  the  form  be  changed,  it  might  be  called  the 
same,  provided  the  constituents  were  viewed  as  more  important 
than  the  form.  If  the  external  form  is  changed  by  growth  or 
development,  as  in  plants  or  animals,  the  continuously  acting 
force  is  regarded  as  making  them  a  substance.  If  the  parts  of 
a  knife  or  a  ship  are  displaced  and  replaced  by  successive  re- 
movals and  substitutions  while  the  form  and  functions  are  re- 
tained, the  substance  is  still  called  the  same  by  a  loose  analogy 
taken  from  living  agents  and  their  gradual  accretion  and  growth. 

§  330.  We  have  seen  that  a  change  in  form  and 
structure  or  in  both,  involves  the  production  of  a  new  ticm  8o?r  new 
substance,  because  it  involves  the  production  of  rela- 
tions which   clearly   distinguish   such   a   substance.     A  living 
being,  as  an  animal,  consists  in  part  of  certain  material  particles 
or  elements.     If  a  succession  of  changes  or  decompositions  and 
recompositions  could  go  on  before  our  eyes,  so  that  we  could 
trace  the  same  particles  back  through  every  form  in  which  they 
.  can  possibly  exist,  through  plant,  mineral,  earth,  air,  water,  etc., 


532  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  33l. 

in  every  possible  form  of  chemical  and  crystalline  combination, 
till  we  had  reached  the  ultimate  molecules  or  elements  of  all 
and  of  each,  we  should  evolve  a  series  of  substances,  one  after 
another,  in  a  consecutive  order  of  gradation. 

But  the  simplest  elements,  the  ultimate  particles,  would  still 
be  substances  with  attributes  which  they  must  continue  to  re- 
tain and  from  which  they  could  never  in  fact  be  parted.  Those 
who  seek  an  interior  substance,  divested  of  attributes — the  nu- 
cleus of  the  outer — are  misled  by  a  secondary  use  of  the  word. 

The  "underlying   substance"   of    the   schools,  the 
The  real  ES-  "thing  in  itself"  of  Kant,  are  mere  names,  which  sig- 

sence    or    the        •/>•,!          i     •  .1          i     ,  -i     •         •        -, 

Tiling  in  itself '.  nity  either  being  m  the  abstract  or  being  in  the  con- 
crete. If  it  is  being  in  the  abstract,  then  it  must  be 
synonymous  with  matter  as  knowable,  i.  e.,  it  is  a  concept  only, 
which  can  be  separated  from  its  relations  in  thought  but  never  in 
fact.  If  it  is  being  in  the  concrete,  then  this  must  be  known 
with  its  relations  and  never  apart  from  them.  In  either  case  the 
substance  or  thing  in  itself,  cannot  be  known  by  itself. 

§  331.  A  material  substance  is  not  necessarily  in- 
dependent  or  self-subsistent.  This  was  insisted  on  by 
Spinoza,  who  defines  substance  to  be  "that  which 
exists  and  is  conceived  by  itself"  "  Per  substantiam 
intelligo  id  quod  in  se  est  et  per  se  coneipitur ;  hoc  est  id  cujus  con- 
ceptus  non  indiget  conceptu  alterius  rei  a  quo  formari  debeat." 
Ethica,  p.  i.,def.  3.  From  this  definition  the  inference  was  direct 
and  irresistible,  that  no  finite  substance  is  possible,  because  every 
so-called  finite  material  substance  is  produced  or  sustained  by 
other  material  beings,  and  is  dependent  on  them ;  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  is  but  one  such  substance,  and  that  is  the  total  of  all 
which  exists — the  universe ;  this  totality  being  conceived  as  abso- 
lute and  independent. 

Locke  falls  into  a  similar  manner  of  speaking  when  he  de- 
scribes the  constitution  "  which  every  thing  has  within  itself 
without  any  relation  to  any  thing  without."  Similar  to  this  is 
the  doctrine  of  Whewell,  that  substance  is  indestructible.  "  The 
supposition  of  the  existence  of  substance  is  so  far  from  being 
uncertain,  that  it  carries  with  it  irresistible  conviction,  and  sub- 
stance is  necessarily  conceived  as  something  which  cannot  be 
produced  or  destroyed."  Hist,  of  Scient.  Ideas,  vol.  ii.,p.  32. 


§  331.     SUBSTANCE  AND  ATTRIBUTE  I    MIND  AND  MATTER.         533 

Our  analysis  has  shown  that  a  material  substance  is  so  far 
from  being  independent  of  other  beings  and  forces,  that,  pro- 
perly speaking,  no  material  substance  is  in  any  sense  inde- 
pendent, or  can  be  conceived  to  be  so.  Every  material  sub- 
stance is  what  it  is  by  the  productive  or  sustaining  force  of  all 
other  beings  and  forces  in  the  universe.  It  is  also  conceived  and 
denned  to  be  what  it  is  by  its  relations  to  these  forces,  the  ex- 
pressed and  the  implied.  It  cannot  exist  and  cannot  be  defined 
except  by  these  relations  to  other  beings  and  agencies.  If  ma- 
terial substance  is  dependent,  it  is  not  necessarily  indestructible. 
Should  the  forces  which  sustain  it  be  withdrawn,  or  their  action 
be  changed,  it  would  cease  to  be,  or  cease  to  be  the  same  sub- 
stance that  it  was. 

And  yet  we  constantly  assume  that  material  substances  are 
permanent, — not  the  ultimate  particles  alone,  but  even  the  continu- 
ous forms  in  which  they  exist  and  perpetually  reappear.  If  we 
did  not  assume  this,  we  should  not  define  the  constituents  of 
either, — we  should  neither  form  them  into  concepts,  nor  apply 
these  concepts  for  the  ends  of  knowledge.  What  is  the  nature 
and  what  are  the  grounds  of  this  assumption  ?  They  are  none 
other  than  that  the  agencies  and  laws  which  sustain  and  produce 
these  substances  will  remain,  in  order  to  accomplish  certain 
ends  for  which  they  exist.  In  other  words,  it  is  only  by  re- 
lations of  orderly  design  that  we  can  explain  or  vindicate  that 
belief  in  the  permanence  of  the  material  structure  as  to  its  foims 
of  being  and  their  constituents  which  is  received  as  an  axiom  in 
all  physical  or  inductive  philosophy.  That  this  permanence  or 
indestructibility  is  not  essential  or  necessary,  that  it  cannot  be 
viewed  as  an  axiomatic  truth,  appears  from  the  broader  and 
deeper  axioms  on  which  it  rests.  These  axioms  involve  the  rela- 
tion of  design  and  belief  in  a  designer. 

There  are  philosophers  who  deny  that  there  are  any 
permanent  forms  or  elements  of  material  substance. 
Such  believe  that  nothing  is  fixed,  either  in  sub-  r 
stance  or  attributes  ;  that  every  thing  in  the  universe  is  in  a  per- 
petual flux,  that  the  law  of  development  controls  all  existence, 
so  that  one  form  and  species  of  being  is  evolved  from  another — • 
the  more  complex  from  the  more  simple — in  endless  progression. 
One  relation  of  permanence  in  nature  must,  however,  be  as- 


534  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  332. 

sumed  by  all  these  philosophers,  and  that  is,  the  permanence  of  this 
law  or  principle  of  development  itself.  If  it  may  be  assumed  from 
the  limited  facts  and  observations  adduced,  that  the  law  of  de- 
velopment has  prevailed  in  all  the  ages,  and  has  evolved  one  form 
of  being  after  another,  by  a  steady  progress  and  in  regular 
order,  then  the  permanence  of  the  law  of  development  itself 
must  be  referred  to  a  fixed  purpose  and  design  of  nature.  The 
law  of  development  cannot,  therefore,  drive  the  fact  of  design 
out  of  the  universe,  nor  dispense  with  the  assumption  of  design 
as  one  of  the  axioms  of  science. 

$  332.  Our  analysis  of  matter  and  spirit  has  shown 

The  reciprocal  J  P  -i       i 

relations  of  that  many  of  the  attributes  of  both  can  only  be  ex- 
spirftiiai  rob-  plained  and  understood  by  means  of  one  another. 
The  one  can  be  denned  and  known  only  by  the 
other.  To  understand  and  describe  the  one  we  must  make  use 
of  the  other.  But  the  two  are  in  some  important  respects  very 
unlike.  In  order  to  show  this  with  success,  we  must  first  con- 
sider the  difference  between  the  direct  and  reflex  knowledge  of 
both. 

The  mind  knows  both  matter  and  mind  by  direct 

Mind  and  mat- 

ter     directly  an(j   reflex    knowledge.      By   direct    knowledge    in 

and  indirectly  *  ' 

known.  sense-perception,  it  knows  matter  as  a  being.  By 

direct  knowledge  in  consciousness,  it  knows  itself  as  the  agent 
which  knows  matter  and  is  also  the  subject  of  certain  sensations. 
It  knows  both  these  objects  in  certain  relations.  It  knows  mat- 
ter not  only  to  exist,  but  to  be  diverse  from  itself  the  knower, 
and  to  be  extended,  i.  e.,  to  have  space  relations ;  it  knows  itself 
to  exist,  and  endurinyly  to  feel  and  act,  i.  e.,  to  have  time  rela- 
tions. 

By  indirect  or  reflex  knowledge  the  soul  is  considered  as  sen- 
tient  as  well  as  percipient.  As  sentient  it  receives  or  suffers  certain 
effects,  viz. :  the  sensations  of  which  matter  is  the  cause.  As  perci- 
pient it  knows  by  consciousness  its  own  subjective  states  as  thus 
caused,  and  by  sense-perception  the  being  that  causes  them ;  also 
that  this  being  is  not  itself,  and  is  extended  in  space.  The  being 
having  these  capacities  to  cause  these  effects  in  itself  as  a  sen- 
tient it  defines  as  matter. 

In  other  words,  in  sense-perception,  the  intellect  knows  some- 
thing more  than  subjective  or  spiritual  effects,  viz.,  specific  sensa- 


§333.     SUBSTANCE  AND  ATTRIBUTE:    MIND  AND  MATTER.          535 

tions,  as  of  touch,  sight,  etc.,  for  which  it  assumes  an  unknown 
cause.  It  rot  only  knows  itself  directly  and  those  acts  and 
objects  that  a;^e  purely  spiritual,  but  it  knows  material  objects 
also,  and  by  its  prerogative  as  an  agent  competent  to  know. 
If  it  did  not  know  them  directly  as  beings,  it  could  not  know 
them  as  extended  or  as  diverse  from  itself,  or  even  as  causal 
agents. 

We  say,  then,  without  reserve,  that  the  mind  in  sense-percep- 
tion, knows  matter  or  material  being  as  truly  and  as  directly  as  in 
consciousness  it  knows  the  ego,  or  mental  being. 

§  333.  The  qualities  of  matter  have  been  divided 
into  the  primary  and  the  secondary.     The  primary  of 
include  its  relations  to  space,  as  extension  and  space-  ESnSiy.  *" 
occupancy, or  impenetrability.     The  secondary  include 
its  causative  relations  to  the  sentient  soul,  as  hardness,  color, 
smell,  taste,  etc.     [Dugald   Stewart   divides  these  relations   into 
Mathematical  affections  and  Primary  and  Secondary  qualities.  Ham- 
ilton recognizes  three  classes,  the  Primary,  the  Secondary,  and  the 
Secundo-primary :  the  primary  including  the  relations  of  exten- 
sion ;  the  secundo-primary,  resistance,  gravity,  repulsion,  and  iner- 
tia ;   and  the  secondary,  the  capacities  to  cause  sensations.] 

The  principle  of  this  two-fold  division  is  obviously  just  and  the 
application  of  it  is  easy.  The  analysis  already  made  has  shown 
that  these  two  classes  of  attributes  are  clearly  distinguished  in 
fact.  The  relations  of  matter  to  space  do  not  in  their  logical  con- 
tent, as  distinguished  by  the  mind,  involve  the  recognition  of  any 
sensation.  On  the  other  hand,  the  powers  of  matter  to  produce 
certain  sensations  of  touch,  sight,  smell,  taste,  and  sound,  can 
only  be  known  by  considering  the  sensations  themselves  as  caused 
by  these  powers.  Of  the  first  class  we  have  direct  and  positive 
knowledge.  Of  the  second  our  knowledge  is  indirect  and  rela- 
tive, it  being  explained  by  the  effects  produced. 

There  is  still  another  element  in  matter  which  does  not  fall 
within  either  class,  and  this  is  matter  as  existing  in  distinction 
from  its  relations  to  other  matter,  to  the  sentient  spirit,  or  to 
space  or  time.  This  is  known  by  direct  mental  apprehension, 
in  connection  with  felt  sensations  and  on  condition  of  the  excited 
or  impelled  sensorium.  Matter  is  known  as  being  and  also  as 
causing  these  sensations:  not  as  though  its  being  were  only  known 


530  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  335. 

by  relation  to  these  sensations ;  but  it  is  directly  known  as  being 
and  also  as  related  to  these  sensations  which  it  causes.  Every 
thing  which  is  known  as  related,  is  known  to  be ;  consequently, 
the  matter  which  is  known  as  related  to  the  sensations  must  also 
be  known  to  exist. 

Two  questions  remain  to  be  considered  in  respect  to  these 
two  classes  of  qualities,  (a.)  Are  the  primary  qualities  distin- 
guished from  the  secondary  in  being  alone  essential  to  the  con- 
ception of  matter,  as  Locke  and  others  assert  ?  (b.)  Do  the  pri- 
mary qualities  alone  give  us  a  knowledge  of  matter  as  it  really  is 
and  as  distinguished  from  a  relative  knowledge  ? 

§  334.  (a)  Are  the  primary  qualities  alone  essential  to  matter  ? 
The  primary  qualities  are  essential  to  the  conception  of  matter, 
so  far  as  they  are  required  and  sufficient  to  define  and  distinguish 
this  kind  of  being  from  every  other.  It  is  of  course  implied  that 
such  relations  are  always  true  of  this  kind  of  existence — that 
they  are  always  present  and  never  absent  in  a  single  individual. 
This  being  assumed,  we  have  only  to  ask  for  a  sufficient  number 
of  relations  to  serve  the  purposes  of  definition.  It  is  obvious 
that  for  this  purpose  no  other  relations  of  matter  are  necessary 
than  its  relations  to  space.  These  are  always  present,  and  for 
the  purposes  of  defining  the  concept,  matter,  these  only  are 
required. 

It  is  contended  that  they  are  essential,  and  therefore  primary, 
in  another  sense,  viz.,  in  being  adequate  as  they  exist  in  different 
forms  and  varieties  to  account  for  all  the  secondary  qualities,  so 
that  color,  taste,  heat,  electricity  can  all  be  resolved  into  the  num- 
ber, position,  and  motion  of  homogeneous  molecules.  It  is  obvious 
however  that  this  is  not  a  logical,  or  psychological,  or  even  a 
metaphysical  problem,  but  one  that  is  purely  physical — a  problem 
which  can  be  solved  by  extensive  observations  of  every  species 
of  matter  and  a  more  penetrating  insight  into  its  powers  and  laws 
than  has  yet  been  reached.  Its  solution  must  be  left  with  the 
physicists,  to  whom  it  properly  belongs. 

§  335.  The  second  question,  (6)  involves  the  more 
r  comprehensive  inquiry,  Is  our  knowledge  of  either 
"  matter  or  spirit  real, or  only  phenomenal  f 

The  real,  in  the  language  of  recent  philosophy,  is 
opposed  both  to  the  phenomenal  and  the  relative.     It  is  used 


§  335.  SUBSTANCE  AND  ATTRIBUTE :  MIND  AND  MATTER.    537 

in  the  first  connection  by  Kant,  and  in  the  second  by  Hamil- 
ton. 

We  have  seen  that  the  knowledge  of  the  primary  qualities 
of  matter  is  more  direct  than  that  of  the  secondary  qualities, 
because  to  the  apprehension  of  the  latter  the  reflexive  con- 
sideration of  the  soul  as  sentient  and  percipient  is  required.  But 
the  knowledge  of  the  relations  of  matter, — as  indeed  of  the  mind, — 
in  one  sense  of  the  term,  must  necessarily  be  a  relative  knowledge, 
whether  the  relations  are  primary  or  secondary. 

But  besides  this  knowledge  of  the  mutual  relations  of  matter 
and  spirit,  we  have  also  a  knowledge  of  both  directly  as  beings — 
of  matter  by  perception  and  of  spirit  by  consciousness.  Is  this 
direct  knowledge  real  knowledge  ?  This  question  is  important, 
and  has  been  so  much  discussed  in  modern  speculation  as  to  re- 
quire special  consideration. 

The  phenomenal,  as  contrasted  with  the  real,  may  be  under- 
stood in  two  senses.  It  may  mean  that  that  which  appears  to  one 
sense  is  not  what  it  appears  to  be  to  another;  as  when  a  stick, 
thrust  in  the  water,  appears  to  be  bent,  but  is  not  so  in  fact ;  or, 
when  the  rainbow  appears  to  be,  but  is  not,  a  solid  arch.  In 
cases  like  these,  the  inference  is  drawn  that  one  percept,  as  that 
given  to  the  eye,  is  the  sign  of  another,  that  which  is  appropriate 
to  the  touch.  We  infer  that  what  we  see  with  the  eye  is.  or 
will  prove  solid,  or,  as  we  say,  real,  to  the  touch.  In  this  se^se, 
that  which  is  known  by  the  sense  of  touch,  is  held  to  be  rval, 
while  what  is  apparent  to  or  inferred  from  vision  or  any  other 
sense  is  phenomenal. 

The  phenomenal,  in  the  second  sense,  is  anything  manifested  to 
direct  observation — either  of  sense  or  consciousness — as  distin- 
guished from  the  elements  into  which  it  is  resolved,  and  the  powers 
or  laws  by  which  it  is  explained.  For  example,  the  rainbow,  as 
apprehended  by  the  eye,  is  a  phenomenon  ;  but  the  light  reflected 
from  rain-drops  at  a  certain  angle  from  the  sun,  is  said  to  be  the 
reality.  The  rain-drop,  again,  as  a  phenomenon, is  a  portion  of 
water  definite  in  form,  relations  to  the  light,  and  appearance 
to  the  eye.  Water,  again, when  chemically  analyzed,  is  the  pro- 
duct of  certain  agents  in  certain  proportions,  etc.  etc.  The  reality 
of  li^ht  is  an  ether  capable  of  certain  undulations. 

According  to  this  use  of  these  contrasted  terms,  every  thing 

23* 


538  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §335. 

apprehended  by  the  senses,  all  that  is  known  as  most  solid  and 
real  in  the  world  of  matter,  is  only  phenomenal.  That  only  is  real 
which  is  discovered  by  science  of  the  elements  and  laws  into  which 
these  phenomena  are  resolved,  and  by  which  they  are  explained. 
Any  thing  which  remains  to  be  thus  explained  and  resolved,  is 
phenomenal,  relatively  to  the  agents  and  laws  which  explain  it. 

Under  this  contrast,  that  which  is  directly  and  constantly 
known,  which  interests  our  feelings,  which  is  most  important, 
and,  in  one  sense,  is  most  permanent,  is  pronounced  unreal ;  and 
that  only  is  called  real  which  is  reached  by  special  and  artificial 
analysis,  and  is  expressed  by  recondite  relations.  Of  the  analysis 
which  attains  to  reality  so  understood,  we  are  never  certain  that 
we  have  reached  the  end.  The  real  agents  behind  these  shifting 
changes  which  we  call  the  phenomenal  universe  of  material 
being,  may  not  yet  have  been  ascertained ;  and  after  all  that 
science  has  discovered,  we  are  still  forced  to  ask,  What  is  reality, 
and  shall  we  ever  be  able  to  lay  hold  of  it?  The  phenomena  of 
the  mind, again, are  what  appears  to  consciousness,  as  contrasted 
•with  the  powers  and  relations  into  which  they  may  be  resolved 
and  by  means  of  which  they  may  perhaps  be  explained.  The 
states  and  operations  of  the  mind,  the  products  themselves,  nay, 
even  the  ego  itself,  of  all  of  which  we  have  direct  knowledge  in 
consciousness — all  these  are  phenomena. 

According  to  Kant  and  Hamilton,reality,or  the  thing  in  itself, 
can  never  be  known.  It  is  transcendental  to  our  knowledge ;  we 
only  know  that  it  is.  We  cannot  even  know  the  truth  of  its  rela- 
tions ;  for  the  relations  or  categories  by  which  the  understanding 
judges,  do  not  connect  realities,  but  only  phenomena.  Even  the 
relations  of  space  and  time  do  not  apply  to  realities,  but  only  to 
phenomena.  And  even  if  both  the  forms  of  the  understanding  and 
of  intuition  could  be  applied  to  things  as  well  as  to  phenomena, 
these  forms  may  themselves  be  only  subjective:  that  is,  the  phe- 
nomenal products  of  the  hum  an  agent  have  an  existence  relative 
only  to  the  constitution  of  the  human  being.  (Cf.  §§  256,  7.) 

The  real  as  thus  opposed  to  the  phenomenal  is  called  by  Kant 
the  noumenon  or  the  thing  in  itself.  This  cannot  be  discerned 
by  the  senses,  nor  can  it  be  apprehended  by  consciousness.  It 
ever  flits  from  our  grasp,  and  leaves  phenomena  only  in  our 
possession  as  shadows  which  never  satisfy,  but  simply  point  to 


§335.     SUBSTANCE  AND  ATTRIBUTE:    MIND  AND  MATTER.          539 

something  which  we  never  can  reach.  This  real  we  cannot  know 
by  the  intellect.  It  is  true,  the  Reason,  as  distinguished  from 
the  Understanding,  must  assume  it  to  exist,  in  order  to  regu- 
late its  operations  and  conclusions,  but  even  the  Speculative 
Reason  does  not  know  that  it  in  fact  exists.  It  is  only  the 
Practical  or  Moral  Reason  which  commands  us  to  believe  that  it 
exists  in  the  three  forms  of  Matter,  the  Soul,  and  God.  This 
knowledge  is  called  relative,  because  it  is  dependent  on  the  con- 
stitution of  the  soul,  and  the  ultimate  relations  by  which  we  con- 
nect the  objects  which  we  know.  If  these  were  changed,  all 
our  present  knowledge  would  be  changed  with  them.  It  is 
therefore  relative  to  these  powers  and  dependent  on  the  rela- 
tions according  to  which  they  connect  objects  in  knowing. 

In  the  language  of  Hamilton :  "  Our  whole  knowledge  of 
mind  and  of  matter  is  relative — conditioned — relatively  condi- 
tioned. Of  things  absolutely  or  in  tfiemselves — be  they  external, 
or  be  they  internal — we  know  nothing  or  know  them  as  incogniza- 
ble ;  and  become  aware  of  their  incomprehensible  existence  only  as 
this  is  indirectly  and  accidentally  revealed  to  us  through  certain 
qualities  related  to  our  faculties  of  knowledge,  and  which  quali- 
ties, again,  we  cannot  think  as  unconditioned,  irrelative,  existent 
in  and  of  themselves.  All  that  we  know  is  therefore  phenomenal 
— phenomenal  of  the  unknown.  \ 

"Our  knowledge  is  relative:  1st,  because  existence  is  not 
cognizable  absolutely  and  in  itself,  but  only  in  special  modes; 
2d,  because  these  modes  can  be  known  only  if  they  stand  in  a 
certain  relation  to  our  faculties ;  and  3d,  because  the  modes,  thus 
relative  to  our  faculties,  are  presented  to  and  known  by  the  mind 
only  under  modifications  determined  by  the  faculties  themselves." 
Met. .Lee.  8. 

To  secure  ourselves  against  this  distrust  of  our  capacity  to 
know  the  real,  we  have  endeavored  to  distinguish  between  ob- 
jects as  perceived  by  sense  and  consciousness,  and  as  known  in 
higher  relations.  Things  and  facts  given  in  experience  are,  as 
phenomena,  j  ust  what  they  appear  to  be.  But  when  we  view  them 
in  their  relations  to  causes  and  laws,  we  call  those  real  whose  causes 
are  permanent  and  always  active.  These  are  constant,  ever-pres- 
ent, and  enduring  effects.  If  the  causes  are  occasional  and  short- 
lived, their  effects  are  said  to  be  unreal.  The  universal  lio-ht  and 


540  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  335, 

the  wakeful  eye  co-operate  to  produce  and  prepare  for  the  per- 
ceiving mind  the  reality  which  we  call  the  visible  universe.  Let 
this  light  be  dimmed,  or  the  eye  be  dimmed  (one  or  both),  and 
the  colored  universe  is  an  actual  reality  no  longer.  But  inasmuch 
as  its  conditions  or  causes  are  ever  ready  to  produce  this  phenom- 
enal being,  it  is  said  to  be  real  or  a  reality.  It  is  only  as  we 
assure  ourselves  that  these  conditions  are  permanent,  because  they 
are  sustained  by  the  agencies  and  the  designs  of  the  living  God, 
that  we  find  the  profoundest  import  as  well  as  the  sufficient 
ground  of  reality. 

But  when  we  hear  Kant  and  Hamilton  inquire,  May  not  the 
intellect  which  perceives,  also  create  the  objects  which  it  beholds, 
with  a  similar  liability  to  change  as  the  sensorium  i.  e.,  Is  not 
existence  with  its  categories,  itself  a  phenomenon  dependent 
upon  changeable  forces,  and  therefore  relative  to  the  powers  and 
forms  of  the  intellect  ?  We*  answer,  No.  Every  analogy  fails  by 
which  we  interpret  the  realities  of  the  knowing  by  the  phenomena 
of  the  sentient  soul.  The  soul,  as  intellect,  not  only  acts  in  know- 
ing according  to  the  constitution  which  makes  it  what  it  is, 
but  it  assumes,  and  must  assume,  that  its  intuitive  relations  are 
discerned  and  affirmed  by  every  intellect  whether  creating  or  cre- 
ated, #nd  are  therefore  the  real  elements  of  all  trustworthy 
knowing  as  a  subjective  process,  and  of  all  valid  knowledge  as  an 
objective  fact.  To  whatever  object-matter  this  process  and  its 
results  are  applied  (whether  it  be  to  material  or  spiritual,  or  to 
the  thinking  agent  itself),  these  categories  are  absolute  and  real, 
and  cannot  be  even  supposed  to  be  relative  or  phenomenal.  To 
suppose  them  such,  is  to  commit  intellectual  suicide.  It  is  to  in- 
troduce constant  antagonism  into  every  process  which  we  perform, 
and  the  elements  of  self-destruction  into  every  result  which  these 
processes  evolve,  as  well  as  logical  incompatibility  and  confusion 
into  the  language  by  which  both  processes  and  results  are  ex- 
pressed. It  is  to  philosophize  ourselves  into  the  impossibility  of 
philosophy,  and  by  assumptions  which  we  argue  that  we  may 
neither  assume  nor  confide  in.  It  is  not  only  to  offend  against 
reason  by  introducing  inconsistency  into  that  which  in  its  very 
nature  is  self-consistent,  but  it  is  to  overlook  or  deny  those  designs 
which  we  must  assume  that  the  universe  exists  to  fulfill,so  far  at 
least  as  it  is  capable  of  being  known. 


§  336.    FINITE  AND  CONDITIONED — INFINITE  AND  ABSOLUTE.    541 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE   FINITE  AND  CONDITIONED. — THE  INFINITE  AND  ABSOLUTE, 

The  questions  concerning  the  finite  and  its  relations,  the  con- 
ditioned and  its  dependence  upon  the  absolute,  are  the  most 
vexed  and  the  most  unsettled  of  any  in  modern  speculation.  Can 
the  infinite  be  conceived  or  known  by  a  finite  intellect  ?  Can 
the  unconditioned  be  brought  under  those  relations  which  are 
appropriate  only  to  the  conditioned  ?  These  questions  we  must 
attempt  to  answer,  if  we  would  analyze  all  the  powers  and  explain 
all  the  products  of  the  human  intellect.  We  can  do  this  more 
successfully  if  we  consider  the  finite  and  the  conditioned  apart 
from  the  infinite  and  the  absolute.  We  begin  with 

I.   The  finite  and  the  conditioned. 

§  336.  The  process  of  knowledge  in  all  the  forms 

To  know  a 

as  yet  considered,  is  a  unifying  and  therefore  a  hmi-  limiting  pro- 
ting  process.  Each  object  which  it  takes  in  hand  it 
analyzes  into  many  parts,  and  discriminates  into  various  elements. 
The  parts  it  then  proceeds  to  recoinbine  into  a  completed  whole  : 
the  elements  it  blends  into  a  perfected  product.  It  leaves  it  a 
completed  whole  or  finished  result,  which  passes  into  the  sum  of 
its  possessions  as  a  known,  a  defined,  and  therefore  a  limited  or 
finite  object. 

Thus,  in  sense-perception,  the  objects  are  perceived  by  being 
first  separated  into  distinct  percepts,  each  of  which  is  perfected 
by  a  separate  act  of  analytic  attention,  and  which  are  again  united 
into  a  completed  whole  in  space. 

The  units  thus  constituted  may  be  enlarged  by  the  imagina- 
tion and  memory.  Spatial  objects  may  be  added  one  to  another,  so 
as  to  increase  the  space-unit  to  the  farthest  limit ;  or  the  imagina- 
tion may  suppose  them  created  where  they  are  not.  Memory 
may  add  to  the  present  mental  states  all  that  have  gone  before 
within  its  own  experience.  Imagination  supplies  all  that  now 
exist  or  that  might  exist  in  other  minds.  Each  of  these  forms  of 
the  representative  power,  after  its  own  manner,  produces  units  01 
finite  wholes. 


542  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  337. 

Thought,  by  its  similarities  observed,  uiiites  the  like  into  new 
combinations  or  units.  It  refers  diverse  effects  to  a  common 
cause,  acting  under  similar  laws.  It  subordinates  means  the 
most  diverse  to  a  single  end,  by  their  conspiring  and  designed 
adaptation,  and  thus  unites  them  as  preeminently  one. 

§  337.     We  can  imagine  that  all  material  objects 

The  finite  uni-  .       .,  ,  ,     ,          °    .       ,  .       . 

verse,  how  perceivable  could  be  united  as  one  by  a  single 
mind  endowed  with  capacities  ample  enough  to  grasp 
so  many  by  a  single  act.  We  can  also  imagine  every  existing  mind 
as  co-operating  with  every  other  mind,  and  can  suppose  each  to  know 
all  the  powers  of  these  minds,  and  all  their  acts.  We  can  be- 
lieve it  possible  that  these  agents  and  objects  should  be  known  in 
all  their  knowable  likenesses  and  dissimilarities,  in  all  their 
causal  agencies,  in  all  the  laws  under  which  their  forces  act  and 
the  ends  to  which  they  are  adapted.  We  can  conceive  this  as- 
semblage of  separate  objects,  material  and  spiritual,  with  their 
several  phenomena,  to  be  but  an  assemblage  of  effects,  produced 
by  other  agencies  and  other  beings  in  previous  times,  and  these 
by  others ;  each  aggregate  of  beings  and  forces  producing  others, 
under  permanent  agencies  and  fixed  laws.  Moreover,  we  can 
conceive  these  beings,  with  their  powers  and  laws,  as  co-existing 
in  space ;  these  successive  evolutions,  whether  of  separate  beings 
or  new  phenomena,  as  developed  in  time,  as  designed  for  separate 
ends,  and  all  these  ends  as  conspiring  together  for  a  series  of 
ends,  constituting  in  this  way  an  intelligible  and  orderly  system. 
This  assemblage  of  all  objects  believed  to  be  existing  in  space 
and  acting  in  time,  with  all  the  agencies  and  laws  and  relations 
now  known  or  which  may  be  afterward  discovered,  make  up  the 
finite  universe  as  knowable,  or  as  conceived  by  man.  It  is  called 
the  universe,  because  it  includes  as  a  whole  all  the  separable 
objects  apprehensible  by  sense  and  consciousness.  It  is  the  finite 
universe,  because  each  of  these  objects  is  limited  to  a  portion  of 
space  and  period  of  time,  and  subjected  to  all  the  conditions 
of  existence  and  of  action  which  their  actual  forces,  laws,  and 
ends  prescribe.  It  exists  and  acts  under  the  action  of  these 
forces,  ends,  and  laws. 

The  finite  universe  is  limited  and  conditioned.  It  is  limited 
because  it  is  made  up  of  objects  and  events  which  are  bounded 
by  one  another,  and  have  a  limited  or  definite  extension.  The 


§338.    FINITE  AND  CONDITIONED — INFINITE  AND  ABSOLUTE.    543 

existing  spirits  which  we  know,  exist  and  act  within  certain  de- 
fined spheres  of  extension.  When  all  these  extended  beings,  and 
these  spheres  of  spiritual  being  and  action,  are  gathered  into  the 
universe  known,  its  extension  is  still  limited  or  defined.  So  far, 
also,  as  we  trace  this  universe  of  beings  and  phenomena  back- 
wards or  forwards  through  the  series  of  its  changing  developments, 
fits  duration  is  limited  by  a  beginning  and  end.  There  is  a  first 
and  a  last  of  the  series,  if  it  is  limited ;  whether  the  terms  de- 
signate a  single  object  or  a  single  act,  or  collectively  designate 
many  objects  and  acts, 

It  is  also  a  conditioned  universe.  Every  part  and  element  in 
it  depends  on  something  other  than  itself,  for  what  it  is  and  for 
what  it  does.  It  begins  to  be  by  the  operation  of  one  or  more 
agents  acting  according  to  laws,  and  these  agents  are  the  neces- 
sary conditions  of  its  existence.  It  also  continues  to  exist  under 
the  operation  of  conditions.  These  conditions  are  the  causes, 
laws,  and  ends  of  its  being,  and  these  prescribe  its  being,  as  well 
as  the  sphere  and  the  results  of  its  activity.  Each  part  of  the 
universe  being  thus  dependent  on  productive  forces  other  than 
itself,  the  universe  itself,  as  a  whole,  is  said  to  be  conditioned  as 
well  as  limited.  But  is  this  all  that  we  know  ?  Is  this  all  that 
exists?  Besides  the  limited,  is  there  the  unlimited?  Besides 
the  conditioned  and  dependent,  is  there  the  unconditioned,  the 
self-existent,  and  self-active  ?  These  questions  introduce 

II.  The  infinite  and  absolute,  and  their  relations  to  the  finite  and 
dependent. 

§  338.  To  understand  the  import  of  the  questions  The  }mport  of 
concerning  these  much- vexed  topics,  and  to  attempt  JJ^*8"]}8  j£fi" 
to  answer  them,  it  is  necessary,  first  of  all,  to  clear  lute- 
away  all  uncertainty  in  respect  to  the  terms  which  are  employed, 
and  to  bring  the  mind  to  a  definite  apprehension  of  the  various 
senses  in  which  they  may  be  interchanged  and  confounded.  We 
consider,  first  of  all,  the  etymology  of  the  more  important  of 
these  terms. 

We  begin  with  the  infinite. 

Infinite  signifies,  literally,  that  which  is  not  bounded  or  ter- 
minated. It  is  primarily  applied  to  spatial  quantity.  Every 
thing  which  has  extent  is  terminated  or  bounded  by  some  other 
object  or  objects  which  are  also  extended.  The  line  or  surface 


544  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §339. 

which  divides  one  surface  or  solid  from  another,  is  called  its 
limit,  and  the  surface  or  solid,  as  necessarily  thus  terminated  01 
terminable,  is  called  finite  or  limited.  In  like  manner,  the  ma- 
thematical point  is  conceived  as  terminating  or  limiting  the  math,* 
matical  line,  and  the  line  itself  is  limited  or  finite.  By  an  obvious 
transference  of  signification  from  the  objects  of  space  to  those  of 
time,  the  first  and  last  of  any  succession  of  events  or  series  of 
numbers  is  called  its  limit,  and  every  series  of  numbers,  numbered 
objects,  or  events  and  portions  of  time,  is  finite  or  limited. 

The  terms  originally  appropriate  to  extension,  duration,  and 
number,  are  still  further  applied  to  the  exercise  of  power  by 
material  and  spiritual  agents.  The  exercise  of  power  by  man, 
whether  spiritual  or  material,  is  possible  only  in  certain  places, 
at  certain  times,  and  with  respect  to  a  certain  number  of  objects, 
or  a  measured  quantity  or  mass  of  matter,  and  thus  power  itself 
becomes  measurable  by  the  relations  of  quantity  and  number  as 
applied  to  its  effects  and  the  means  by  which  they  are  caused. 
Man  can  only  accomplish  certain  effects  in  limited  places,  times, 
and  number,  and  hence  he  is  said  to  be  limited  in  his  powers. 
He  can  only  know  and  do  certain  things  under  all  these  favoring 
circumstances,  and  is  therefore  a  finite  being.  The  word  finite 
is,  therefore,  originally  a  term  of  quantity,  and  secondarily  of 
causal  or  productive  agency.  The  infinite,  in  the  general  sense  is 
the  woi-finite.  Logically  conceivable,  there  are  as  many  sorts  of 
the  not-finite  or  infinite  as  there  are  senses  of  the  finite. 

§  339.  The  unconditioned  comes  next  in  order. 
tionedUT8°nthe  Logically,  it  is  the  negative  of  the  conditioned,  and 
non-condition-  follows  its  meaning.  The  conditioned  is  that  which  is 
in  any  sense  dependent  upon  any  thing  else,  either  as  a 
material  of  its  composition,  a  cause  or  means  of  its  production,  or  an 
object  of  its  psychical  activity.  Thus,  silver  is  a  condition  of  a  silver 
spoon  ;  heat  is  the  condition  of  the  melting  of  iron  ;  and  a  material 
world  the  condition  of  the  act  of  sense-perception.  Every  condition 
has  this  in  common  with  every  other,  viz.,  that  that  to  which  it  is 
the  condition  cannot  be  what  it  is  without  it,  whether  it  is  a 
thing,  an  act  or  an  effect.  It  is  therefore  said  to  be  limited  by 
these  conditions.  It  can  neither  be,  nor  be  thought  of  without 
them.  They  are  necessary  to  it.  They  must  be  given  or  present 
with  it,  and  are  therefore  called  its  conditions. 


§340.    FINITE  AND  CONDITIONED — INFINITE  AND  ABSOLUTE.    545 

The  primary  signification  of  the  conditioned  is  that  of  necessary 
dependence.  Its  secondary  application  is  to  objects  of  quantity, 
thus  reversing  the  process  through  which  the  finite  passes.  The 
finite  proceeds  from  a  signification  of  quantity  to  one  of  quality. 
The  conditioned  proceeds  from  quality  to'  quantity. 
The  line  and  surface  are  the  conditions  as  well  as  the  quality  and 
limits  respectively  of  the  surface  and  the  solid,  but 
solely  because  they  are  essentially  necessary  to  the  conception  of 
each.  In  the  same  manner,  space  and  time  are  the  conditions  of 
extension  and  duration,  because  they  are  essential  to  the  possibil- 
ity of  each.  These  can  neither  be  logically  thought  of,  nor  really 
exist,  except  as  they  involve  space  and  time  as  their  conditions. 
All  the  limits  of  objects  of  quantity  are  also  their  conditions,  but 
all  the  conditions  of  such  objects  are  not  necessarily  their  limits. 

The  unconditioned  is  that  which  is  not  conditioned — i.  e.,  not 
necessarily  dependent  on  another  object  for  thought,  being,  or  act, 
as  a  constituent,  cause,  or  object.  Whenever  the  positive,  the 
conditioned,  can  be  applied,  the  negative  unconditioned,  can  be 
logically  conceived  as  its  opposite. 

§  340.    Flie  absolute  is  still  another  term  that  is 

.  i    •  •  r      i_     '•    /»    •  T         The  absolute, 

often  interchanged  with  the  infinite  and  the  uncondi-  several  senses 
tioned.  Originally  and  etymological] y,  it  signifies 
freed  from,  or  severed.  This  signification  is  purely  negative  with 
reference  to  that  from  which  the  subject  is  freed.  It  was  also 
applied  to  mean  the  finished  or  completed,  even  as  the  Latin  word 
absolutus,  as  is  thought,  was  originally  used  of  the  web  when 
ready  to  be  taken  from  the  loom.  Both  these  senses  have  passed 
into  the  modern  use  of  the  term,  and  determined  the  varieties  of 
its  application.  First  of  all,  absolute  and  absolutely  is  applied 
to  any  thought  or  thing  as  viewed  apart  from  any  of  its  rela- 
tions— regarded  simply  by  itself.  This  meaning  is  near  akin  to 
that  of  an  object  viewed  as  complete  within  or  by  itself.  Next, 
it  is  applied  to  that  which  is  complete  of  itself  so  far  as  the 
relations  of  dependence  are  concerned  ;  to  that  which  is  necessa- 
rily dependent  on  nothing  besides  itself.  In  this  sense  it  is  very 
near  in  meaning  to  the  primary  sense  of  the  unconditioned  al- 
ready explained.  Still  further  it  is  used  in  the  sense  of  severed 
or  separated  from  all  relations  whatever,  or  not  related — i.  e.,  not 
admitting  of  any  relations.  This  sense  Hamilton  and  Mansel 


546  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  341. 

have  transferred  also  to  the  unconditioned  and  the  infinite. 
Still  again :  it  is  applied  to  relations  of  quantity,  and  here  the 
signification  of  complete  or  finished  is  applied  to  the  greatest 
possible  or  conceivable  whole,  to  the  total  of  all  existence,  whether 
limited  or  unlimited  in  extent  and  duration. 

In  the  Hegelian  terminology,  the  absolute  takes  a  special  signifi- 
-euse  Hegelian  cation  from  the  fundamental  assumptions  of  the  Hegelian  system. 
When  the  notion,  der  Beyriff,  has  completed  every  possible  form  of 
development,  and,  as  it  were,  done  its  utmost  possible  by  the  force  of  the  move- 
ment essential  to  itself,  the  absolute  is  reached.  This  absolute  completes  every 
possible  form  of  development,  and  explains  every  kind  of  object  conceivable 
and  knowable  by  the  mind,  from  the  undetermined  notion  with  which  it  begins,  up 
to  the  highest  form  of  development,  when  it  becomes  self-conscious  in  the  human 
spirit  by  distinguishing  itself  from  the  material  universe.  The  conscious  spirit 
thus  evolved,  and  reflecting  in  itself  all  these  lower  forms  of  existence,  is  essential 
to  and  completes  the  development  of  the  absolute.  This  absolute  is  perpetually 
reproduced  by  the  lower  forces  of  the  universe,  and  itself  perpetually  represents 
all  these  in  its  own  reflective  thinking. 

It  is  obvious  from  what  has  been  said,  that  these  three  terms 
are  all  used  in  applications  which  are  often  interchanged,  but 
which  should  be  carefully  and  sharply  distinguished.  The 
infinite,  the  unconditioned,  the  absolute,  may  denote  some 
property  or  relation  of  a  being,  in  the  abstract,  or  may  stand  for  a 
being  or  entity  which  is  believed  or  supposed  to  be  infinite,  un- 
conditioned, or  absolute.  That  is,  the  infinite,  etc.,  may  stand 
for  the  infinitude,  the  unconditionedness,  the  absoluteness  of  some 
being — i.  e.,  as  an  abstraction  or  property  of  a  being  ;  or  for  that 
which  is  infinite,  unconditioned,  or  absolute.  One  of  these  ac- 
ceptations is  obviously  very  different  from  the  other.  The  one 
may  readily  be  confounded  with  the  other. 

§  341.  These  concepts  and  the  entities  which  they 

What  is  not  true 

of  the  absolute,  represent  are  not  ot   necessity  merely  negative  con- 
ceptions, nor  are  they  the  products  of  what  is  called 
negative  thinking. 

We  have  seen  from  our  analysis  of  the  terms  infinite,  uncondi- 
tioned, and  absolute,  that  they  are  all  originally  negative  in  form, 
and  that  this  form,  strictly  interpreted,  would  denote  the  absence 
or  the  denial  of  the  positive  attributes,  with  which  these  nega- 
tives are  combined.  From  this  unquestioned  fact  the  inference 
has  been  derived  that,  because  the  terms  were  negative,  the  con« 
cepts  are  also  negative. 


§341.   FINITE  AND  CONDITIONED — INFINITE  AND  ABSOLUTE.   547 

But  this  inference,  by  whomsoever  it  is  countenanced  or  made, 
is  manifestly  invalid.  It  does  not  follow,  because  a  concept  is 
designated  by  a  negative  term,  that  it  is  not  positively  conceived ; 
or,  because  an  object  is  called  by  such  a  name,  that  it  is  not 
really  known.  If  the  only  fact  that  is  prominent  before  the 
mind  be  that  an  object  is  not  something  else — whether  it  be  a 
being  or  a  quality — it  may  be  designated  by  a  negative  term. 
This  term  does  not  deny  its  real  existence,  or  that  it  is  both 
knowable  and  known,  for  it  may  assume  and  imply  both.  It 
simply  sets  forth  its  contrast  with  something  else.  If  we  see  a 
bat,  and  say  of  it,  It  is  not  a  bird,  or,  It  is  not  a  beast,  or  if  the 
Sandwich  Islanders,  for  lack  of  name,  had  called  the  ox  a  not-dog, 
the  use  of  a  negative  appellation  would  not  necessarily  authorize 
us  to  infer  the  absence  of  definite  conceptions  or  of  positive  know- 
ledge. So,  when  we  gather  together  the  entire  sphere  of  finite 
being,  and  stretching  our  thought  beyond,  apprehend  something 
which  is  unlike  it  and  contrasted  with  it  by  being  not  finite,  not 
conditioned,  and  not  dependent,  we  do  not  confess  that  we  cannot 
conceive  it  or  that  we  do  not  know  it  as  something  positive  and 
real  because  we  emphasize  this  single  relation  of  contrast  by  the 
use  of  such  negative  terms  as  the  infinite,  the  unconditioned,  and 
the  absolute. 

Again,  these  concepts  are  not  "  negative  "  in  that  they  are  pro- 
duced by  what  is  called  "negative  thinking."  This  negative 
thinking  is  distinguished  from  the  mere  thinking  of  a  negative — 
i.  e.,  thinking  a  positive  in  a  negative  relation — as  above  ex- 
plained. Those  who  teach  this,  assert  that  our  conceptions  of  the 
unconditioned,  etc.,  are  necessarily  negative,  because  they  are  the 
result  of  an  attempt  to  think  them  which  is  unsuccessful,  and 
xwhich,  whenever  it  is  repeated,  reminds  us  of  the  impotence  or 
imbecility  of  our  faculties. 

"  Every  thing  conceivable  in  thought  lies  between  two  extremes,  which,  as  con- 
tradictory of  each  other,  cannot  both  be  true,  but  of  which,  as  mutual  oontradic . 
tions,  one  must."  "  Space  cannot  be  conceived  by  us  either  as  an  infinite  or  a 
finite  maximum,  or  an  infinite  or  finite  minimum,  and  yet  if  it  is  conceived  at  all 
it  must  be  conceived  as  one  of  these,  and  forasmuch  as  wo  cannot  conceive  it 
under  either,  wo  have  only  a  negative  idea  of  space,  i.  e.,  an  idea  which  results 
from  an  impotent  attempt  to  conceive  it.  The  same  is  true  of  time,  and  even  of 
causation  itself.'— Hamilton,  Met.,Lec.  38.  Mansel  illustrates  the  process  of  ne- 
gative thinking  still  more  definitely.  "  A  negative  concept,  on  the  other  hand; 


548  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  341. 

which  is  no  concept  at  all,  is  the  attempt  to  realize  in  thought  those  combinations 
of  attributes  of  which  no  corresponding  intuition  is  possible."  "  The  only  nega- 
tive ideas  with  which  the  logician  or  metaphysic.an  as  such  is  concerned,  are 
those  which  arise  from  an  attempt  to  IrauscenI  the  conditions  of  all  human 
thought."  *  *  "  Such  negative  notions,  however,  must  not  be  confounded  with 
the  absence  of  all  mental  activity.  They  imply  a.t  once  an  attempt  to  think  and 
a  failure  in  that  attempt." — Mansel,  Proleg.  Loyica,  chap.  i. 

Again:  The  unconditioned,  etc.  is  not  necessarily,  as  a  concept 
or  as  a  being,  exclusive  of  all  relations.  It  is  not  unrelated,  or 
the  unrelated. 

The  doctrine  of  Spinoza  was  contrary  to  this.  The  maxim  on  which  he 
rested  for  the  statement  and  defence  of  it  was  Omnis  determinatio  est  neyatio. 
Every  relation  implies  a  distinction  into  parts  related;  the  one  part  cannot  be  the 
other :  hence,  the  absolute,  as  related,  cannot  be  complete  or  perfect  of  itself.  It 
cannot  be  unconditioned,  for,  in  order  to  be  related,  it  must  require,  or,  so  far  as 
related  must  be  conditioned  upon,  that  which  is  related  to  and  is  not  itself. 
It  cannot  be  unlimited,  for,  in  order  to  be  what  it  is,  or  \yhat  it  is  asserted  to  be 
in  the  given  relation,  it  must  depend  on  something  out  of  itself.  The  uncondi- 
tioned cannot,  therefore,  be  related.  Hamilton  gives  the  following  reasons  for 
the  same  opinion  :  "  A  relation  is  always  a  particular  point  of  view  ;  consequently, 
the  things  thought  as  relative  and  correlative  are  always  thought  restrict! vely,  in 
so  far  as  the  thought  of  the  one  discriminates  and  excludes  the  other  and  1'ke- 
wise  all  things  not  conceived  in  the  sajne  special  or  relative  point  of  view."  And 
again  :<rWe  conceive  God  as  in  the  relation  of  Creator;  and  in  so  far  a.'  we 
merely  conceive  him  as  Creator,  we  do  not  conceive  him  as  unconditioned,  as  -Infi- 
nite," etc.  (Letter  to  Calderwood;  cf.  Mansel,  Limits  of  Eel.  Thought,  Lee.  2.) 

The  proper  answer  to  these  representations  is  the  following : 
It  is  not  at  all  essential  to  the  conception  of  the  absolute  wh  ich 
the  human  mind  requires,  or  to  its  reality,  that  it  should  excli  ide 
all  relations,  but  only  a  certain  class  of  relations,  viz.,  those  of 
dependent  being  or  origination.  The  truly  absolute  and  infinite  is 
not  the  unrelated  as  such,  but  that  which  is  not  dependent  on  any 
other  being  for  its  existence  or  its  activity. 

Again :  The  unconditioned,  etc.,  is  not  the  sum  of  all  actual 
or  conceivable  being. 

This  view  of  the  absolute  is  closely  connected  with  the  pre- 
ceding. The  denial  of  all  relations  to  the  absolute  involves  the 
denial  of  all  parts  or  entities,  whether  real  or  thought-parts, 
which  can  be  related,  and  this  requires  the  conception  of  the  ab- 
solute, as  the  total  of  all  existences  and  conceivable  things,  tho 
To  IV  xai  Hav,  the  all  which  is  also  one.  This  position  was  actually 
taken  by  Spinoza,  who  was  driven  by  logical  consistency  to  ac- 
knowledge but  one  being  or  substance  in  the  universe. 


§341.    FINITE  AND  CONDITIONED — INFINITE  AND  ABSOLUTE.   549 

Hamilton  (Letter  to  Calderwood]  reasons  as  though  this  were  the  only  possible 
conception  of  the  true  absolute.  Mansel,  (Limits  of  Rel.  Thought,  Lee.  2,)  ex- 
pressly asserts  :  "  That  which  is  conceived  as  absolute  and  infinite  must  be  con- 
ceived as  containing  within  itself  the  sum  not  only  of  all  actual,  but  of  all  possi- 
ble modes  of  being.  For,  if  any  actual  mode  can  be  denied  of  it,  it  is  related  to 
that  mode,  and  limited  by  it."  "The  metaphysical  representation  of  the  Deity, 
as  absolute  and  infinite,  must  necessarily,  as  the  profoundest  metaphysicians  have 
acknowledged,  amount  to  nothing  else  than  the  sum  of  all  reality." 

Of  this  view  of  the  absolute,  we  need  only  say,  that  it  is  not 
the  only  possible  conception,  nor  is  it  the  most  rational  concep- 
tion which  can  be  taken  of  it.  In  a  gross  quantitative  sense,  we 
may  say  that  the  finite,  plus  the  so-cailed  infinite,  equals  the 
absolute,  and  that  the  result  is  in  conception  and  in  fact  the  un- 
conditioned and  the  infinite,  because  nothing  can  be  affirmed  of 
it  in  the  way  of  distinction  or  relation.  But  the  question  at  once 
returns,  Is  this  the  absolute  and  the  unconditioned  which  the 
mind  necessarily  receives  in  thought  and  believes  in  fact  ?  This 
absolute  cannot  be  totality,  for  it  is  expressly  supplied  by  the 
mind  in  addition  to  the  finite,  and  in  order  to  account  for  and 
explain  this.  It  cannot  include  that  or  require  that  which  it  itself 
accounts  for  and  explains. 

Again :  The  absolute,  again,  is  not  a  concept  or  entity  which 
is  divested  of  all  interior  relations — a  something  entirely  one 
and  simple. 

Those  who  contend  that  the  absolute  does  not  admit  the  idea 
of  parts,  because  parts  imply  division  and  relationship,  are 
driven  by  a  logical  necessity  to  the  conclusion  that  it  must  be  one 
and  indivisible  in  respect  of  parts  and  relations.  Hence  it  has  been 
inferred  that  the  absolute  cannot  be  a  personal  being.  'A  person 
distinguishes  himself  from  that  which  is  not  himself,  his  own 
being  from  his  acts,  and  both  from  their  objects,  whether  these  be 
real  or  spiritual.  His  acts  must  be  successive  to  one  another  also, 
and  thus  be  separable  and  distinguishable  in  time.  All  these  divi- 
sible parts  and  distinguishable  relations  are,'  it  is  urged, '  entirely 
incompatible  with  the  concept  and  reality  of  the  absolute.' 

These  views  are  held  by  those  who  deny  the  possibility  of 
personality  in  God,  as  well  as  by  those  who,  like  Kant,  Hansel, 
and  Hamilton,  believe  that  God  is  personal,  but  deny  that,  so 
far  as  He  is  believed  to  be  personal,  He  can  be  known  as  the 
Absolute. 


550  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  342. 

It  is  enough  to  say  of  this  view  of  the  absolute,  as  has  been 
said  already,  that  the  absolute  does  not  necessarily  exclude  the 
possibility  of  parts  or  relations.  The  absence  of  necessary  de- 
pendence upon  the  finite  and  the  complete  dependence  of  the 
infinite  upon  itself,  does  not  imply  such  a  simplicity  or  oneness 
of  being,  as  excludes  coinplexness  or  personality. 

§  342.  It  has  been  earnestly  held  that  the  absolute 

etc.,are  Sknow-   or    the    infinite   is    unknowable   by   a   finite    mind. 

Some   have  held   that   the   mind   cannot    properly 

know  either,  that  it  is,  or  what  it  is ;  others  that  we  can  know 

that  it  is,  but  not  what  it  is. 

Kant,  Hamilton,  and  Mansel  all    hold    that   we 

Views  of  Kant,  .  . 

Hamilton,  and  cannot  know,  though  we  mav  believe  that  the  infinite 

Mansel.  . 

exists,  simply  because  the  conception  of  the  infinite 
is  not  within  the  grasp  of  the  finite.  Kant  teaches  that  the 
reason  why  we  cannot  know  the  infinite,  is,  that  our  faculties  of 
knowing  both  the  finite  and  the  infinite  have  merely  a  subjective 
necessity  and  validity,  and  therefore  we  cannot  trust  their  re- 
sults as  objectively  true.  Moreover,  if  we  apply  them  to  the  in- 
finite, we  are  involved  in  perpetual  antinomies  or  contradictions. 
Our  only  apprehension  of  the  absolute  is,  therefore,  by  the 
practical  reason,  and  comes  in  the  way  of  a  moral  necessity 
through  the  categorical  imperative,  which  requires  us  to  receive 
certain  verities  as  true.  JacoU,  Schleiermaclwr,  and  others  say, 
that  we  reach  these  by  faith  or  feeling,  and  not  by  knowledge. 
Hamilton  asserts  that  we  find  ourselves  impotent  to  know  them, 
in  consequence  of  the  contradictions  which  the  attempt  involves. 
But  he  expressly  asserts  "  that  the  sphere  of  our  belief  is  much 
more  extensive  than  the  sphere  of  our  knowledge ;  and  there- 
fore, when  I  deny  that  the  infinite  can  by  us  be  known,  I  am  far 
from  denying  that  by  us  it  is,  must,  and  ought  to  be  believed. 
This  I  have  indeed  anxiously  evinced,  both  by  reasoning  and  au- 
thority." (Letter  to  Calderwood.) 

Herbert  Spencer  reasons    against    Hamilton    and 
MaDsel,  to  the  conclusion  that  we  can   know  that  the 
Infinite  exists,  but  we  cannot  know  what  it  is.     He 
contends  that  we  can  know  that  it  is,  because,  "  To  say  that  we 
cannot  know  the  Absolute  is,  by  implication,  to  affirm  that  there 
is  an  Absolute.     In  the  very  denial  of  our  power  to  know  what 


§  342.    FINITE  AND  CONDITIONED — INFINITE  AND  ABSOLUTE.    651 

the  Absolute  is,  there  lies  hidden  the  assumption  that  it  is,  etc. 
Besides  that  definite  consciousness  of  which  logic  formulates  the 
laws,  there  is  also  an  indefinite  consciousness  which  cannot  be 
formulated." — First  Principles,  P.  I.,  c.  iv.,  §  26. 

\Ye  contend  that  the  absolute  is  knowable  —  that  man 
can  both  know  that  it  is  and  what  it  is.  But,  first  of  all,  we 
would  define  the  sense  in  which  it  cannot  be  known,  either  as  thai 
or  what. 

(a.)  It  cannot  be  known  by  the  imagination,  either  as  repre- 
sentative or  creative.  The  imagination  can  only  picture  that 
which  is  limited  by  space  and  time,  and  which  is  possessed  of 
limited  powers  of  matter  or  spirit.  The  absolute  and  infinite 
has  none  of  the  attributes  of  matter  or  spirit,  as  limited  by 
space  and  time.  It  cannot,  therefore,  be  either  imaged  or 
pictured. 

It  would  be  more  exact  to  say  that  the  analogies  between 
any  finite  objects  and  the  infinite  are  so  general  and  attenuated, 
that  the  imagination  can  render  no  available  or  efficient  service 
by  introducing  any  images  of  the  finite. 

To  attempt  to  image  the  relation  of  dependence  which  exists 
between  the  infinite  and  the  finite  by  such  special  and  limited 
examples  of  it  as  exist  between  different  limited  beings,  is 
either  superfluous  or  misleading.  The  relation  may  be  known 
as  so  general,  like  that  of  simple  entity,  as  not  to  need  an  exam- 
ple ;  or  the  use  of  examples  may  introduce  many  extraneous 
and  unimportant  circumstances,  which  may  be  conceived  as 
essential  to  the  relation  in  question.  Thus,  when  it  is  reasoned 
that  self-existence,  personality,  the  creation  of  another  than  itself, 
the  possession  of  a  complex  nature — one  or  all,  are  incompatible 
with  the  true  infinite  and  unconditioned,  the  reasoning  is  founded 
on  the  attempted  exemplification  of  the  infinite  by  the  finite,  and 
on  the  unessential  accessories  which  finite  images  suggest.  Logi- 
cally expressed,  it  is  a  case  of  fallacia  accidentis. 

The  antinomies  of  Kant  and  the  essential  contradictions  of 
Hamilton  each  of  which  seem  necessary  to  the  mind,  and  each  of 
which  exclude  the  other,  are  all  made  by  the  mind  itself  in  th« 
attempt  to  illustrate  the  infinite  by  the  finite.  The  antinomies  of 
Kant  are  incompatibilities  between  an  image  and  a  relation  which 
the  image  exemplifies,  or  between  two  images  adduced  to  illus- 


552  THE   HUMAN    INTELLECT.  §  342. 

trate  different  relations,  or  between  two  concepts,  both  of  which 
are  not  necessary  to  the  mind.  The  solution  of  them  is  to  be 
found  in  a  re-statement  of  the  conceptions  between  which  these 
incompatibilities  are  said  to  exist.  Thus,  for  example,  in  the 
alleged  antinomy  involved  in  the  propositions  the  world  is  in  time 
and  space  and  is  neither  finite  nor  infinite;  the  contradiction  lies 
between  a  fact  or  image  borrowed  from  experience,  and  an  alleged 
a  priori  necessity  of  thought.  But  the  incompatibility  of  the 
one  with  the  other  arises  from  a  misconception  of  what  is  in- 
volved in  our  conception  of  the  infinite,  a  confounding  of  the 
extended  in  space  with  space  itself.  When  Hamilton  says  we 
must  conceive  of  space  as  a  bounded  or  a  not  bounded  sphere,  he 
introduces  the  image  of  an  object  existing  in  space  and  limited 
in  space,  in  order  to  illustrate  space  itself,  and  confounds  the 
one  with  the  other. 

We  observe  still  further,  (6.)  that  the  absolute,  etc.,  though 
knowable,  is  not  a  notion  that  is  the  product  of  reasoning, 
inductive  or  deductive,  or  that  can  be  defined  in  a  system  of  logical 
classification. 

It  cannot  be  inferred  by  induction,  because,  as  has  been  shown, 
it  is  assumed  in  the  very  process  of  induction,  as  its  necessary 
condition.  (Cf.  §§  237,  240.) 

It  cannot  be  deduced  by  syllogistic  reasoning,  because,  as  has 
been  shown,  all  deduction  rests  either  on  a  previous  process  of 
induction,  or  on  the  intuitions  of  time  and  space.  (Cf.'  §  226, 7,  8.) 
But  induction  requires  the  absolute  as  its  condition. 

Nor  can  the  concept  be  defined  for  the  ends  of  logical  classifi- 
cation. The  infinite  is  not  properly  co-ordinate  with  the  finite, 
for  the  reason  that  it  must  be  assumed  as  the  ground  of  all  such 
classification.  Every  notion  or  concept  of  every  finite  existence 
implies  the  unconditioned,  and  holds  some  relation  to  it,  but  its 
relations  are  not  necessarily  used  in  defining  the  notion  for  logical 
or  scientific  ends.  The  relations  of  substance  and  attribute,  as 
used  in  such  definition  and  classification,  are  applicable  only  to 
objects,  which  for  their  existence  and  their  relations  are  depend- 
ent on  the  fixed  conditions  of  finite  being.  They  imply  the 
presence  of  time  and  space  relations,  and  the  limitations  of  the 
powers  of  created  beings  by  the  laws  which  are  determined  by 
these  relations.  The  cause  and  effect,  the  adaptations  and  ends, 


§  343.    FINITE  AND  CONDITIONED — INFINITE  AND  ABSOLUTE.    550 

which  logic  usually  recognizes  in  its  operations,  are  fixed  in  a 
similar  manner  by  established  forces  and  laws. 

The  so-called  categories — i.  e.,  the  generic  relations  which  are 
supreme  and  final  in  scientific  definition  and  classification — can- 
not be  applied  to  the  infinite,  because  the  infinite  is  required  and 
assumed  for  the  explanation  of  these  very  categories.  These 
categories  rest  upon  the  infinite,  and  presuppose  it. 

We  next  affirm  positively  that  the  absolute  is  and  can  be  known 
as  the  correlate  which  must  be  necessarily  assumed  to  explain  and 
account  for  the  finite  universe. 

If  the  absolute  is  necessary  to  explain  the  finite,  then  it  holds 
some  relations  to  it.  If  it  is  its  correlate,  it  must  be  connected 
with  it  by  some  relations.  What  these  relations  are,  it  is  not 
needful  to  inquire.  All  that  we  need  here  to  urge,  is,  it  is  so  far 
from  being  true,  that  because  it  is  absolute  it  is  not  related, 
that,  on  the  contrary,  it  cannot  be  the  absolute  without  being 
known  as  related.  We  cannot  know  that  it  is,  without  knowing, 
to  a  certain  degree,  what  it  is.  If  it  is  necessary  to  the  mind  to 
assume  the  absolute  in  order  to  explain  the  infinite,  then  the 
finite  is  certainly  explained  by  these  relations  which  it  holds  to 
the  absolute.  These  relations  must  be  real,  else  our  knowledge 
is  a  fiction.  They  must  be  capable  of  expression  in  language. 
The  relations  between  the  finite  and  the  infinite  need  not,  of 
course,  be  the  same  as  those  which  exist  between  the  finite  and 
the  finite,  but  they  must  be  real  and  cognizable  relations. 

§  343.    The  apprehension  of  the  absolute  is  an  act 

e-  77  T  77    7  /•  /•    •  7  f  The  absolute  ap- 

oj  knowledge,  even  when  catted  an  act  of  faith  or  feel-  pre  ended     by 

/™?    eocro^  the  intellect. 

ing.  (Cf.  §  258.) 

Hamilton  opposes  the  one  to  the  other,  as  faith  to  knowledge, 
because  he  affirms  that  to  know  is  always  "  to  condition ;" 
and  therefore  if  we  know  the  unconditioned,  we  must  con- 
dition the  unconditioned,  and  limit  the  infinite.  His  doctrine 
is,  that  "we  believe  the  infinite,  but  do  not  know  it  to  be.  The 
sphere  of  our  faith,  is  wider  than  the  sphere  of  our  knowledge." 
But  to  know  as  related,  is  not  the  same  as  to  condition  in  the 
special  signification  in  which  the  unconditioned  and  the  infinite 
are  opposed  to  the  conditioned  and  the  finite.  The  knowledge 
of  the  unconditioned  may  be  a  priori,  intuitive,  and  neces- 
sary, but  it  is  knowledge  nevertheless.  It  may  be  higher  than 


554  THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.  §  344. 

any   reasoned  or  logically   defined   knowledge,   but  it  is  still 
knowledge. 

To  call  it  faith,  in  any  but  a  purely  technical  and  private 
sense  of  the  word,  is  to  put  it  out  of  all  relation  to  knowledge. 
To  contrast  it  with  knowledge  in  respect  to  its  essential  charac- 
teristics, is  to  weaken  the  very  foundations  on  which  both 
knowledge  and  science  are  made  to  rest.  Especially  is  this  the 
case,  if  this  so-called  faith  is  referred  to  an  impotence  of  the 
intellect,  and  is  made  to  depend  on  the  conscious  imbecility  and 
known  limitations  of  the  powers.  This  is  so  far  from  being  true, 
that,  to  know  the  absolute,  is  to  know  in  the  highest  and  the 
most  positive  sense  possible  to  the  mind.  For  if  we  cannot 
assume  the  infinite,  we  can  neither  define  nor  reason  the  finite. 
Without  the  intuition  of  the  unconditioned,  it  is  impossible  to 
have  any  grounded  science  of  the  conditioned. 

§  344.  But  though  we  have  a  real  and  proper 
haustivTiy n  eJr  knowledge  of  the  absolute,  we  do  not  therefore 
attain  to  an  adequate  and  exhaustive,  or  what  is 
often  called  an  absolute  knowledge  of  it.  But  this  forms  no  ob- 
jection to  the  reality  of  this  knowledge.  Indeed,  an  exhaustive 
knowledge,  even  of  the  finite,  is  only  ideally  conceivable,  but  is  in 
fact  impossible.  An  absolute  knowledge  of  all  the  relations  of 
an  individual  object — e.  g.,  a  mass  of  rock,  a  tree,  an  animal,  or  a 
man,  would  imply  a  complete  mastery  of  all  the  relations  which 
each  holds  to  every  other  object  in  the  universe,  in  respect  to  its 
properties  and  ends  — in  other  words,  an  exhaustive  knowledge 
of  the  universe  itself. 

For  man.  the  unexhausted  finite  must  ever  be  as 

The  finite  uni- 
verse infinite  to   the  infinite.     But  the  fact  that  he  knows  the  finite  in 

our  knowledge. 

part,  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  proposition  that  he 
knows  it  in  truth.  Nor  ought  the  fact  that  man  knows  the  in- 
finite but  in  part,  to  be  used  to  prove  that,  so  far  as  he  knows  it, 
he  does  not  know  it  as  it  is.  To  man  there  is,  in  both  finite  and 
infinite,  a  background  always  unexplored,  and  which,  perhaps, 
never  can  be  explored  by  man.  If  this  is  so,  then  the  finite  is  as 
the  infinite  to  him.  The  limited  forest,  into  the  mazes  of  which 
the  child  has  not  yet  penetrated,  the  shallow  abyss  the  depths  of 
which  he  has  not  ventured  to  sound,  are  to  him  the  symbols  of 
infinitude. 


§  345.    FINITE  AND  CONDITIONED — INFINITE  AND  ABSOLUTE.    555 

In  both  finite  and,  infinite,  there  is  a  common  mystery,  which 
cannot  be  overcome,  and  that  is  the  mystery  of  self-existence.  It 
does  not  relieve  this  mystery,  to  accept  the  fact  of  self-evolved 
and  self-evolving  forces  and  laws  ;  nor  does  it  increase  it,  to  accept 
the  fact  of  a  self-existent  creating  intelligence  whom  we  assume 
to  explain  the  order  and  thought  of  the  finite  universe. 

We  may  then  positively  affirm  that  the  absolute  is 
a  thinking  agent.  The  universe  is  a  thought  as  well  5lJnk*Jg0i^* 
as  a  thing.  As  fraught  with  design,  it  reveals  thought 
as  well  as  force.  The  thought  includes  the  origination  of  the 
forces  and  their  laws,  as  well  as  the  combination  and  use  of 
them.  These  thoughts  must  relate  to  the  whole  universe.  If  so, 
it  follows  that  the  universe  is  controlled  by  a  single  thought,  and 
is  the  thought  of  an  individual  thinker.  If  gravitation  every- 
where prevails,  and  gravitation  is  a  thought  as  well  as  a  thing, 
then  the  universe,  so  far  as  it  depends  on  and  is  affected  by 
gravitation,  is  a  single  thought.  But  a  thought  implies  a  think- 
ing agent,  and  if  the  universe  is  a  single  thought,  it  was  thought 
by  one  thinking  agent.  That  this  thinking  person  should  be 
self-existent,  involves  no  greater  mystery  than  a  self-existent  tbing 
or  system  of  things. 

§  345.  We  assume  that  this  Absolute  exists,  in 
order  that  thought  and  science  may  be  possible.  We 
do  not  demonstrate  his  being  by  deduction,  because 
we  must  believe  it  in  order  to  reason  deductively. 
We  do  not  infer  this  by  induction,  because  induction  suppose?  it; 
but  we  show  that  every  man  who  believes  in  either,  or  in  both, 
must  assume  it,  or  give  up  his  confidence  both  in  these  processes 
and  in  their  results.  We  do  not  demonstrate  that  God  exists,  but 
that  every  man  must  assume  that  He  is.  We.  analyze  the  several 
processes  of  knowledge  into  their  underlying  assumptions,  and 
we  find  that  the  one  assumption  which  underlies  them  all  is  a  self- 
existent  intelligence,  who  not  only  can  be  known  by  man,  but  who 
must  be  known  by  man  in  order  that  man  may  know  any  thing 
besides.  In  analyzing  our  psychological  processes,  we  develop 
and  demonstrate  an  ultimate  truth,  and  that  is  the  truth 
which  the  unsophisticated  intellect  of  child  and  man  requires 
and  accepts,  that  there  is  a  self-existent  personal  intelligence, 
on  whom  the  universe  depends  for  the  being  and  the  relations  of 


556  THE   HUMAN  INTELLECT  §345. 

which  it  consists.  We  are,  therefore,  not  alone  justified — we  uro 
compelled — to  conclude  our  analysis  of  the  human  intellect  with 
the  assertion,  that  its  processes  involve  the  assumption  that  there 
is  an  uncreated  Thinker,  whose  thoughts  can  be  interpreted  by 
the  created  intellect  which  is  made  in  His  image. 


INDEX. 


Absolute,  (see  Infinite ;)  original  meaning  of, 
545 ;  the  Hegelian  sense,  546 ;  used  in  the 
concrete  and  abstract,  546. 

Abstract  thinking,  325 ;  concepts,  332. 

AbstractioG,  328. 

Acquired  sense-perceptions,  chapter  on,  132- 
150 ;  examples  of,  132 ;  defined,  do.  ;  import- 
ance of,  132,  3 ;  many  gained  very  early, 
133;  of  smell  and  bearing,  133,  4;  of  sight, 
134;  of  distance,  of  magnitude,  134,  6;  ot 
size,  136 ;  mistaken  judgments  of  both,  do.  ; 
of  percepts  appropriate  to  touch,  137,  8 ;  of 
place  of  sensations,  139  ;  of  control  of  bod- 
ily motions,  do.;  provisions  for,  139-141; 
how  controlled,  141-143 ;  involve  memory, 
145 ;  and  induction,  140 ;  infants  capable  of 
such  inductions,  146,  7  ;  objections,  148 ; 
from  the  case  of  animals,  148,  9 ;  other  ac- 
quisitions of  the  infant,  149. 

Activity  of  the  soul,  essential  to  its  nature, 
18 ;  essential  to  knowledge,  42 ;  in  sense- 
perception,  chapter  on,  180 ;  is  attested  by 
consciousness,  181 ;  varies  in  energy,  do. ; 
success  depends  on  attention,  do. ;  differs  iu 
different  men,  182;  shown  in  iunervation 
of  organs,  do. ;  directed  to  different  objects, 
183;  selects  and  combines,  184;  separates 
single  objects  in  infancy,  185 ;  continued 
through  life,  do. ;  illustrated  in  different 
men,  185 ;  easily  performed,  186. 

Adaptation,  500 ;  how  related  to  design,  do. 

./Esthetics,  its  relations  to  psychology,  8. 

Agassiz,  on  species,  353 ;  on  classification,  414. 

Analogy  of  nature,  393. 

Analysis,  involved  in  knowledge,  46. 

Analytical  reasoning  in  mathematics,  378. 

Anthropology,  defined,  2. 

Antinomies  of  Kant,  and  Hamilton,  475. 

Apperception,  62,  3. 

Aristotle,  division  of  powers  of  the  soul,  31.  2  ; 
theory  of  sense-perception,  192 ;  enumera- 
tion of  laws  of  association,  231  ;  on  univer- 
sals,  310:  regarded  the  middle  term  as  cau- 
sal, 374.  5 ;  fourfold  division  of  causes,  499. 

Arnanld,  theory  of  sense-perception,  195. 

Association  of  ideas,  210;  chapter  on,  225- 
254;  other  terms  for,  225  ;  importance  and 
mystery  of,  225,  6 ;  method  of  discussion, 
227 ;  division  of,  do.  ;  not  explained  by  bod- 
ily organization,  227,  8  ;  defect  of  all  phys- 
iological explanations,  228,  9;  actual  infla- 
eaccof  the  body,  229  ;  exercised  by  means  of 
psychical  states,  230, 1 ;  vital  sensations  may 
act  as  links  of  association,  do. ;  ideas  do 
not  attract  one  another,  231,  2 :  crude  state- 
ments of  Hobbes  and  others,  <1n.  ;  relations 
do  not  attract  ideas,  232;  relations  stated 


as  three,  seven,  two,  and  one,  232-4 ;  la* 
of  redintegration,  234;  how  far  satisfactory. 
235 ;  objection,  236 ;  the  real  solution,  237 ; 
explains  phenomena,  237,  8 ;  associations 
with  sensible  objects,  239;  of  home,  do. ; 
relations  of  acquisition  and  reproduction 
the  same,  239,  40 ;  secondary  laws  of  asso- 
ciation defined  and  named,  241 ;  discussed, 
241,  2 ;  apparent  exceptions  to,  243 ;  llotbes' 
often-quoted  illustration,  do.;  two  theories 
in  explanation,  244;  capable  of  intt-rrup- 
tion  and  control,  245,  6 ;  not  the  only  power 
of  the  soul,  246;  indirectly  controlled,  247  ; 
relation  to  habits,  question  concerning, 
248,  9 ;  higher  and  lower  laws  of,  250  ;  prev- 
alence of  higher,  250  ;  of  lower,  251 ;  casual 
associations,  251,  2  ;  in  changes  of  fashions, 
252 ;  the  moral  influence  of,  do.  ;  influence 
on  language,  253 ;  on  philosophy,  do. 

Associational  psychology,  38-40;  prominent 
writers,  38  ;  explanation  of  necessary  truths, 
39  ;  fundamental  error,  39-40 ;  usually  ma- 
terialistic, 40. 

Associational  school,  their  views  of  intui- 
t  ons,  436. 

Astronomy,  discoveries  in,  397,  9. 

Attention' defined,  47  ;  beginnings  of,  152,  3; 
Stewart's  theory,  178 ;  can  be  given  to  two 
objects  at  once,  178,9;  is  the  utmost  at- 
tention possible  to  more  than  one?  179. 

Attribute,  relations  most  frequently  used  as, 
108  ;  sensations  so  used,  170,  1 ;  etymology 
and  meaning  of,  525  :  iu  the  abstract,  525  ; 
material  ;  indicate  but  do  not  constitute 
matter,  530. 

Auxiliary  lines  in  geometry,  384,  5. 

Axioms,  mathematical,  382,  3 ;  Analytical  and 
synthetical,  382 ;  are  they  properly  premi- 
ses? 383. 

Pain,  A  ,  an  associationalist,  38. 

Being,  correlate  of  knowledge,  44 ;  varieties 
of,  45;  some  more  lasting  and  important, 
do.  ;  contrasted  with  phenomenon,  do. ;  oim 
kind  mistaken  for  another,  do. ;  not  known 
apart  from  relations,  do. ;  category  of,  440; 
fundamental  in  what  sense,  do.;  different 
sorts  of,  do. ;  the  most  abstract,  447 ;  how 
explained,  do.  ;  concrete  known  first,  do. ; 
knowledge  of.  expressed  in  propositions. 
448 ;  not  a  relation,  do. ;  cannot  be  defined! 
do. ;  treated  as  an  attribute,  do. ;  inde- 
terminate, do. ;  both  spiritual  and  material, 
directly  known,  449. 

Berkeley's  view  of  sensation,  103 ;  theory  of 
sense-perception,  197  ;  doctrine  of  the  con- 
cept, 342,  3. 

557 


558 


INDEX. 


Biran,  de,  M.,  views  of  intuitions,  437  ;  theory 
of  causation,  493-495 ;  how  far  correct,  494. 

Black's,  Dr.,  discovery  of  carbonic  acid  gas, 
395. 

Blind,  the,  when  restored  to  sight,  137,  8 ; 
how  they  judge  of  form,  size,  etc.,  138  ;  the 
reports  of,  critically  noticed,  163-165. 

Bodily  organism,  97,  8. 

Bonnet,  theory  of  vibration,  227. 

Brain,  the  organ  of  the  soul,  38. 

Brown,  Dr.  T.,  denies  consciousness  of  ego, 
69 ;  admits  it,  70 ;  theory  of  tactual  and 
other  sensations,  123;  theory  of  sensa-per- 
ception,  199 ;  of  the  nature  of  the  concept, 
343;  of  intuitions,  436;  theory  of  causation, 
484,  5. 

fluxton,  Sir  T.  F.,  advice  on  memory,  274. 

Categories.    (See  Intuition.) 

Causation,  and  causality,  chapter  on,  481- 
499 ;  as  a  law  principle  and  distinguished, 
481,  2 ;  the  principle  of,  intuitively  evident, 
484,  6 ;  reasons  for,  487 ;  resolved  into  a 
time-relation,  484;  by  Hume,  do.;  by 
Brown,  do. ;  by  J.  8.  Mill,  485 ;  not  a  rela- 
tion of  time,  495,  6 ;  not  explained  by  in- 
duction, 488,  91 ;  nor  by  association,  489 ; 
not  gained  by  experience,  inner  or  outer, 
492-495;  Locke's  views,  492;  views  of  R. 
Collard  and  M.  de  Biran  493 ;  theory  of  De 
Biran,  493-5;  two  positions  of,  493;  how 
far  correct,  494-5;  denied  to  matter,  494; 
denied  to  created  spirits,  495;  Malebranche, 
do.;  theories  a  priori,  4i5,  6  ;  explained  by 
law  of  contradiction,  496;  Wolf,  Kant  He- 
gel, do  ;  Hamilton's  explanation  by  the  law 
of  the  conditioned,  496-9;  objections  to, 
498, 9 ;  conclusion,  true  doctrine  of,  499. 

Cause  distinguished  from  condition,  483 ;  four 
classes  of,  499. 

Cerebralists.    (See  Cerebral  Psychology.) 

Cerebral  Psychology,  36 ;  supposes  conscious- 
ness, 37. 

Clarke,  S.,  definition  of  space  and  time,  479. 

Cl  tssification,  how  it  arises,  335 ;  by  children 
and  savages,  336 ;  in  science,  do. ;  relations 
to  knowledge,  337  ;  significance  of,  338  ;  as- 
sumes final  cause,  514. 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  on  the  arts  of  memory,  276, 7. 

Complex  notions,  333. 

Concept,  formation  of,  chapter  on,  327-339; 
of  material  objects,  327;  when  it  begins, 
do.;  similarity  discerned,  328;  involves 
analysis,  do. ;  attributes  distinguished,  do. ; 
called  abstraction,  do.;  to  prescind,  do. ; 
comparison,  do. ;  generalization,  329;  pre- 
dication, do.  ;  assumes  substance  and  attri- 
bute, do. ;  appellations  concept,  330 ;  and 
notion,  do.  ;  not  a  percept,  do. ;  no>-  an  im- 
age, do.;  relative,  do. ;  a  mental  product, 
do. ;  universal,  331 ;  predicable,  do. ;  re- 
spects attributes  only,  332;  concrete  and 
abstract,  do.;  simple  and  complex,  333; 
content  and  extent,  334 ;  mutual  relations 
of  the  two,  334-337  ;  how  far  they  add  to 
knowledge,  338 ;  theories  of  nature  of,  chap- 
ter on,  339-340 ;  Socrates  and  Plato  on,  339 ; 
Aristotle,  do. ;  Porphyry,  the  Realists,  Nom- 
inalists, and  Conceptualists,  340;  ihomas 
Hobbes,  340, 1;  John  Locke,  G.  W.  Leibnitz, 
George  B.  Berkeley  and  D.  Hume,  341-3 ; 
Reid  Dr.  T.  Brown,  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  343  ; 
J.  S.  Mill,  344;  I.  Kant,  344;  Hegel,  315; 
nature  of.  chapter  on,  345-357  ;  distinguish- 
ed from  the  act,  345;  implies  substance  and 


attribute,  do. ;  is  relative,  346  ;  founded  on 
similarity,  do. ;  classifies,  do. ;  gives  import 
to  names,  347 ;  the  import  explained  by  in- 
dividuals, do-  ;  nominalists  how  far  right, 
347,  8 ;  the  conceptionalist,  349,  50  ;  the  real- 
ist, 350,  2 ;  mistakes  of  the  realist,  352,  3 ; 
why  language  aids  thinking,  353,  4  ;  sym- 
bolic and  intuitive  knowledge,  354-357 ; 
formed  by  judgment,  358  ;  how  related  to 
it,  359;  in  mathematics,  380  ;  of  space  and 
time  objects,  464,  5  ;  mathematical,  do.  ;  of 
geometry,  do. ;  of  number,  do. ;  of  space 
and  time,  476,  7. 

Conceptualists,  the,  339  ;  strife  adjusted,  349. 

Concrete  thinking,  325  ;  concepts,  332. 

Condillac  and  school,  on  the  origin  of  know- 
ledge, 436. 

Conditioned.     (See  Infinite.) 

Consciousness,  and  natural  consciousness, 
chapter  on,  61-67;  defined,  61;  applied  to 
any  act  of  knowledge,  61 ;  a  collective  term 
for  all  the  intellectual  states,  62;  meta- 
phorical uses  of,  do.  ;  proper  meaning,  do. ; 
called  inner  sense,  do. ;  called  appercep- 
tion, do. ;  German  equivalent  for,  63  ;  called 
reflection,  do. ;  exercised  in  two  forms,  dn  ; 
the  two  -defined,  64  ;  natural  consciousnc  BS 
as  an  act,  do. ;  an  act  of  knowledge,  do.  ; 
results  in  a  product,  65 ;  is  sui  generis,  do.  ; 
consciousness,  the  object,  66.  7  ;  object  com- 
plex, do.  ;  elements  threefold,  67  ;  relations 
to  one  another,  67,  8  ;  elements  not  regard- 
ed with  equal  attention,  C8 ;  the  activity  an 
object,  do. ;  also  the  ego,  70. 1  ;  different 
views,  68,  9;  proof  that  we  are  conscinus 
of  the  ego,  70;  unconscious  admissions, 
70, 1 ;  are  we  conscious  of  objects  ?  71,  2  ; 
summary  of  doctrine  of  consciousness,  i'2  ; 
object  of  c.  a  condition  of  being,  72  ;  Des- 
cartes' doctrine,  do. ;  c.  involves  all  the  cat- 
egories, 73;  development  and  growth  of  c., 
74,  5  ;  exercised  more  or  less  completely  in 
different  persons,  75 ;  capacity  for,  not  de- 
veloped, 76;  latent  modifications  of,  do. ; 
capable  of  degrees,  76,  7  ;  Leibnitz's  doc- 
trine of,  77;  philosophical  or  reflective, 
chapter  on,  78-93;  characterized  by  ati  en- 
tion,  78;  the  morbid  consciousness  in  chil- 
dren, hypochondriacs,  etc.,  78,  9  ;  egoistic 
consciousness,  79 ;  ethical  type,  do. ;  in  Jio 
reflective,  attention  is  persistent,  80 ;  com- 
prehensive, 81 ;  comparative  and  cl>  ssi ty- 
ing, 81,2;  interpretive,  82;  searches  for 
conditions  and  laws,  do.;  relations  to  nat- 
ural consciousness,  82,  3;  imparts  new 
knowledge,  83 ;  in  what  sense,  do.  ;  rela- 
tions of  language  to  each.  84,  5  ;  does  nut 
create  phenomena,  85;  dangers  from  exact 
terminology,  do.;  psychology,  tried  by  the 
language  of  common  life,  85,  6  ;  by  the  ac- 
tions, 87  ;  conditions  of  the  successful  in- 
terpretation of  both,  88,  9  ;  why  men  are 
so  positive  in  their  philosophical  opinions, 
88  ;  explains  slow  progress  of  psychology, 
89 ;  explains  difficulties  in  studying  psy 
chology,  90-92. 

Conservative  faculty.    (See  Memory.) 

Content,  of  notion,  334. 

Contradiction,  law  of,  453. 

Copernicus,  discovery,  397. 

Copula,  force  of,  361,  3. 

Cousin,  on  origin  of  knowledge,  425;  views 
of  intuition,  437. 

Critical  or  speculative  stage  of  knowledge, 
52. 


INDEX. 


559 


Dal  ton's  discovery  of  chemical  equivalents, 
395,  6. 

Dana,  on  species,  353. 

Darwin,   on   species,  352. 

Davy's  discovery,  396,  7. 

Deaf  mutes,  reason  why  they  cannot  speak,142. 

Deduction,  chapter  on,  366-377  ;  how  related 
to  induction,  367,  8 ;  its  two  forms,  369,  71 ; 
is  not  explained  hy  the  dictum  de  omni  et 
nutto,  371,2;  but  rests  on  the  relation  of 
reason  to  consequent,  373;  this  rests  on 
causation,  374,  7 ;  varieties  of,  chapter  on, 
378-391 ;  various  classes  of,  378 ;  probable 
378,9;  mathematical,  380,3;  not  purely 
deduction,  383,  4 ;  examples  of,  384, 5 ;  im- 
mediate or  logical,  386,  7  ;  distinguished 
from  the  process  of  preparation,  388,  9  ; 
does  it  add  to  knowledge  ?  389. 

Definition,  361,  3. 

Democritus,  theory  of  sense-perception,  191. 

Descartes,  cogito,  ergo  sum,  72;  theory  of 
sense-perception,  193,  5 ;  on  innate  ideas, 
442 ;  on  final  cause,  509. 

Design,  or  final  cause,  chapter  on,  498-523 ; 
(see  Final  Cause ;)  how  related  to  adapta- 
tion, 499. 

Development,  of  the  intellect  explained,  51,  2; 
order  and  stages  of,  do.  ;  of  consciousness, 
stages  of,  74,  6  ;  of  sense-perception,  chap- 
ter on,  150-163;  of  touch,  154-156;  of  vis- 
ion, 156-159. 

Dianoetic  faculty,  59. 

Dictum  de  omni  et  nullo,  372. 

Discovery  and  Invention,  the  conditions  of, 
40J-413;  attention,  410;  familiarity,  411; 
constructive  imagination,  411, 12 ;  wise  judg- 
ment, 413;  ready  deduction,  do.;  reference 
to  Divine  mind,  414,  15  ;  experiment,  415. 

Diversity  or  otherness,  relation  of,  449  ;  pro- 
position expressing  it,  do. ;  relation  to  nega- 
tion, 450. 

Division  of  the  concept,  364. 

Dreams,  and  dreaming,  283-286;  dreams,  the 
soul  active  constantly,  283,  4;  the  soul  acts 
with  feeble  energy,  284;'  with  varying 
energy,  do. ;  representative  power  active, 
do.;  irregular,  do. ;  the  judgment  feeble, 
do. ;  the  reasoning  power,  284,  5  ;  conscious- 
ness feeble,  286;  estimates  of  time  in,  do. ; 
moral  responsibility  in,  do.;  the  emotion 
in,  do. ;  the  activity  of  the  will  in,  do. 

Dugald  Stewart.     (See  Stewart.) 

Duration,  how  related  to  the  soul's  acts,  456 ; 
applied  to  two  objects,  457 ;  relations  of 
do. ;  void,  do  ;  relations  to  extension,  458  ; 
transferred  to  material  acts,  do  ;  measures 
of,  whence  derived,  do. ;  language  of,  459 ; 
how  related  to  time,  do. ;  affirmed  of  events, 
but  not  of  time,  do. 

Ego,  the,  known  in  consciousness.  70, 1 ;  de- 
nied by  many,  do. ;  distinguished  from  the 
s  -If,  83,  4. 

Elaborative  faculty,  59. 

Empedocles,  theory  of  sense-perception,  190, 1. 

Enthymeme,  the,  369. 

Error,  possible  of  relations  only,  45 ;  of  the 
senses  belong  to  the  acquired  sense-per- 
ceptions, 144  ;  two  classes  of,  144,  5. 

Ethics,  its  relation  to  psychology,  7,  8  ;  as- 
sumes final  cause,  520. 

Essence,  362. 

Event,  defined,  482  ;  different  classes  of,  482, 3. 

Excluded  middle,  law  of,  453. 

Extended  objects  limited,  43. 


Extension  known  in  perception,  106 ;  In  vis- 
ion superficial  only,  128;  extra  organic, 
how  acquired,  154,  5 ;  known  in  sense-per- 
ception, 455 ;  blended  with  matter,  do. ;  the 
several  relations  of,  456;  relations  to  dura- 
tion, 458,9;  related  to  space,  473;  limits 
objects,  474;  affirmed  of  objects  not  of 
space,  475. 

Extent  ,  of  notion  defined,  334;  of  mathemat- 
ical concepts,  382. 

Externality,  known  in  perception,  105,  6:  in 
touch,  122 ;  two  meanings  of,  do. ;  of  the 
body  to  the  soul,  123,  4;  of  one  body  to 
another,  do. ;  extra  organic,  how  acquired, 
154-156. 

Eye,  the  structure  of,  126 ;  single  objects  seen 
with  two  eyes,  129,  30  ;  dignity  of  131,  2. 

Faculties  of  the  soul,  24-34;  the  soul,  not 
parts  or  organs,  24;  often  so  miscon- 
ceived, 25  ;  do  not  act  apart,  do. ;  grounds 
of  belief  in,  25-27  ;  states  like  and  unlike, 
26 ;  one  dependent  on  another,  do. ;  distin- 
guishable by  a  prominent  element,  do.; 
more  obvious  than  powers  of  matter,  27; 
why  called  human,  28  ;  not  independent, 
do.;  relations  of,  important  in  education, 
28,  9 ;  history  of  doctrine  of,  31,  2 ;  syn- 
onyms for,  33,  4 ;  of  the  intellect,  how  con- 
ceived, 53,  4;  leading  faculties  named,  54 
severally  defined,  54-60. 

Fainting.     (See  Phantasy.) 

Fichte,  T.  G.,  on  the  categories,  444. 

Final  cause,  chapter  on,  499-523  ;  terms  ex- 
plained, division  of  causes,  500  ;  the  rela- 
tion discerned  a  priori,  501 ;  reasons  for 
the  position,  501-505 ;  the  mind  seeks  this 
relation,  501 ;  acknowledges  it  to  be  higher, 
do. ;  is  of  service  in  discovery,  do. ;  the 
only  basis  of  deduction,  503 ;  explains  or- 
ganic phenomena,  502  ;  conspicuous  in  the 
highest  order  of  beings,  504 ;  does  not  dis- 
place efficient  causes,  505 ;  objections  to  the 
position,  505-513  ;  men  mistake,  505  ;  they 
cannot  test  their  inductions,  506 ;  the  rela- 
tion subjective  only,  do.;  involves  two 
principles,  508;  hinders  discovery,  509; 
Bacon  and  Descartes  on,  do. ;  adaptations 
are  necessary  conditions  only,  510;  limi- 
ted, 511 ;  cannot  be  ascribed  to  an  unlimi- 
ted Being,  512 ;  application  of  the  principle, 
do. ;  in  metaphysics,  do. ;  in  induction,  do.; 
in  the  formation  of  the  concepts  do.; 
in  classification,  513;  in  the  notion  of  an 
individual,  do ;  as  a  rule  of  truth,  514 ;  in 
mathematics,  -do.;  in  geology  and  paleon- 
tology, 515;  in  phil.  geography,  516:  in 
comp.  anatomy,  517 ;  in  physiology,  do.  • 
in  anthropology,  do. ;  in  psychology,  519 ; 
in  ethics,  520  ;  in  theol<  gy,  521 ;  two  classes 
of  theories  of  God,  521  ;  reasons  for  accept- 
ing a  personal  God,  522. 

Finite  and  the  Infinite,  (see  Infinite) ;  and 
conditioned,  the  chapter  on,  541 ;  result 
of  processes  of  knowledge,  do. ;  the  finite 
universe  how  conceived,  542 ;  is  limited  and 
conditioned,  543. 

First  principles.     (See  Intuition.) 

First  truths.     (See  Intuition.) 

Forgetfulness.     (Fee  Memory.) 

Forgotten.    (See  Memory.) 

Formal  cause,  500. 

Formal  categories,  446 ;  chapter  on,  446-455. 

Forms,  of  thought  and  being,  324 ;  of  know- 
ledge, Kant  ana  Hamilton  error,  concern? 
ing,  538. 


iCO 


INDEX. 


Franklin's  discovery  of  electricity,  394,  5. 
Functions  of  the  soul  defined,  33. 

Galileo,  discovery  by,  398. 

Gassendi,  illustration  of  memory,  263. 

Generalization,  319,  '22. 

Geography,  Phil.,  assumes  final  cause,  329. 

G-ology,  assumes  final  cause,  516. 

Geometrical  reasoning,  (see  Mathematical 
quantities) ;  constructions  of,  302,  3  ;  fig- 
ures, construction  of,  304;  quantities  m- a- 
surable,  305 ;  example  of,  335 ;  concepts, 
how  formed,  466 ;  rests  on  what  assump- 
tion <,  467;  postulates  of,  do. 

God,  belief  in,  assumed  in  inductive  and  sci- 
entific knowledge,  408. 

Habit,  relation  to  association,  248  ;  theory  of, 
do. ;  often  supposes  a  difficulty,  do.  ;  bodily, 
do. ;  mental,  249  ;  emotional,  do. 

Hallucinations,  216  ;  case  of  Nicolai,  293  ;  not 
purely  physical,  do. ;  how  explained,  do. 

Hamilton,  Sir  Wm.,  division  of  faculties,  32  ; 
consciousness  of  Ego,  69 ;  theory  of  extra- 
organic  perception,  156,  7  ;  doctrine  of  la- 
tent modifications,  244 ;  on  the  nature  of 
the  concept,  343;  Hamilton's  dictum  of  the 
syllogism,  372;  on  origin  of  knowledge, 
424;  positive  and  negative  necessity,  441 ; 
theory  of  causation  by  law  of  the  condi- 
tioned, 495-498,  sqq. ;  of  primary,  secondary 
and  secundo-primary  qualities,  535 ;  on  the 
real  and  phenomenal,  538,  9;  negative 
thinking,  546-550;  on  the  Infinite,  549. 

Harvey's  discovery  prompted  by  final  cause, 
502. 

Hauser,  Casper,  how  the  world  looked  to, 
162. 

Hearing,  sense-perceptions  of,  113-116 ;  organ, 
113 ;  varieties,  how  far  distinguishable,  114, 
15 ;  condition  of  language,  115 ;  expresses 
feeling,  do.;  dignity,  116;  acquired  per- 
cep'ions  of,  133,  4. 

Hegel,  on  the  nature  of  the  concept,  445 ;  on 
the  categories,  445 ;  being  equals  nothing, 
448 ;  error,  do. 

Herbart,  doctrine  of  faculties,  32 ;  theory  of 
sense-perception,  204. 

Herbert  Spencer,  (see  Spencer,)  an  associa- 
tionalist,  38 ;  doctrine  of  necessary  truths, 
39-40. 

Hobbes,  crude  views  of  association,  231,  2 ; 
often-quoted  illustration,  243. 

Hume  denies  consciousness  of  ego,  68  ;  enum- 
eration of  laws  of  association,  232 ;  doctrine 
of  the  concept,  342 ;  on  tuitions,  436  ;  the- 
ory of  causation,  do. 

Ideals,  nature  of,  301 ;  varieties  of,  304,  6;  re- 
lated to  individual  experience,  306,  7. 

Identity,  law  of,  etc.,  do  not  explain  deduc- 
tion, 371,  2 ;  category  of,  452 ;  affi  r,mable  of 
spirit  and  matter,  do. ;  logical  law  of  do. ; 
concerns  concepts,  do. ;  guards  against 
what,  546  ;  founded  on  real  identity,  misap- 
plication of  by  Hegel  and  others,  do. ;  of 

,    material   substance,  do. 

Image,  technical  name  for  objects  of  repre- 
sentation, 209  ;  relation  to  concept,  349  ;  of 
space  and  time  objects,  457. 

Imagination,  a  modification  of  representation, 
211 ;  mathematical,  212;  poetic,  213  ;  philo- 
sophical, do. ;  the,  chapter  on,  295-318 ; 
materials  and  conditions  lor,  295,  6 ;  space 


and  time,  295  ;  thought-relations,  296 ;  ma- 
terial qualities,  do.;  spiritual,  do.;  how  far 
can  it  modify  these  materials  ?  296-301 ;  iti 
combining  office,  301 ;  idealization  of  space 
and  time  objects,  the  mathematical  imag 
ination,  301,  3 ;  psychical  idealization, 
303,4;  capable  of  growth  and  culture. 
307, 9  ;  constantly  exercised,  do.  ;  the  poetic, 
309,  12;  the  philosophic,  312,  14;  the  ethi- 
cal, 314, 15  ;  the  religious,  316-318. 

Imaging,  of  concepts,  349 ;  of  space  and  time 
objects,  460 ;  of  the  infinite,  etc.,  316-318. 

Individual,  notion  of,  rests  on  final  cause,  499. 

Induction,  relation  to  psychology,  35;  how 
related  to  deduction,  367,8;  chapter  on, 
391-416;  loosely  defined,  392;  the  so-called 
purely  logical,  do. ;  proper  induction,  393; 
very  frequent,  do. ;  how  differs  from  simple 
judgment,  do.  ;  importance  of  a  correct 
theory,  of,  do. ;  in  science,  394-399 ;  why  in 
science  more  difficult,  400-402;  the  prob- 
lem of,  difficult,  403  ;  involves  certain  as- 
sumptions, 404-408  ;  three  rules  of  induc- 
tion, 408 ;  conditions  of  successful  hypothe» 
sis,  410-413  ;  relation  of  experiments,  415. 

Inductive  science.     (See  Induction.) 

Infants  capable  of  induction,  446,  7 ;  condi- 
tion of  the  soul  in,  150,  2  ;  learns  to  touch, 
162. 

Infinite,  unconditioned  and  absolute,  chap- 
ter on,  541-556  ;  relations  to  the  finite,  541, 2 ; 
literal  import  of  infinite,  543;  transferred 
from  quantity  to  quality,  544 ;  variety  of 
senses  of,  do. ;  the  terms  used  in  the  con- 
crete and  abstract,  546 ;  not  negative  con- 
ceptions, 547;  not  produced  by  negative 
thinking,  do.;  Hamilton  and  Mansel,  do. ; 
not  unrelated,  548  ;  Spinoza,  do. ;  Hobbes' 
doctrine  of,  do. ;  not  the  sum  total  of  being, 
549  ;  totality  not  infinite,  do.  ;  not  a  matter 
of  quantity,  do. ;  not  one  and  simple,  do. ; 
is  knowable,  that  and  what  it  is,  650;  Her- 
bert Spencer's  doctrine  of,  do.;  cannot  be 
imagined,  551 ;  Kant's  antinomies  explain- 
ed, do.;  not  known  by  reasoning  or  induc- 
tion, 552  ;  not  defined  for  classification,  do.  ; 
holds  relations  to  the  finite,  do. ;  known  by 
knowledge,  and  not  by  laith  or  feeling, 
do.;  not  known  exhaustively,  554;  self-ex- 
istence common  to  the  finite  and  infinite, 
555 ;  is  a  thinking  person,  555 ;  relations 
to  space  and  time,  556. 

Innate  Ideas,  doctrine  of,  435. 

Inner  sense.     (See  Consciousness.) 

Insanity,  294,  5. 

Intellect,  growth  and  development  of,  51,2; 
rules  for  culture  of,  52,  3  ;  faculties  of,  54; 
learns  to  control  the  body,  141,  3  ;  its  state 
before  sense-perception,  150. 

Intuition  and  Intuitive  knowledge,  58,  Part 
IV.,  419-556;  defined  and  enumerated,  chap- 
ter on,  419-133;  not  gained  by  ordinary 
processes,  422 ;  referred  by  some  to  a  spe- 
cial faculty,  do. ;  various  appellations  for, 
do. ;  not  first  in  time,  422  ;  Locke's  polemic 
against,  do. ;  first  in  logical  importance, 
do.;  in  what  sense  principles,  423;  differ 
ent  senses  of  the  word,  do. ;  how  related 
to  origin  of  knowledge,  424;  stages  «f  th« 
mind's  progress  in,  425-427  ;  explanation 
of  the  limited  assent  to  them,  4'_7 ;  tested 
by  the  language  and  actions  of  men,  428,  9 ; 
three  criteria,  429;  logically  Independent 
do.;  divided  into  three  classes,  483  ;  theo- 
ries of,  chapter  on,  433-445 ;  of  direct  men- 


INDEX. 


561 


tal  vision,  434 ;  light  of  nature,  do. ;  innate 
ideas,  do  ;  school  of  Locke,  435  ;  Condillac, 
448 ;  Hume,  do. ;  of  the  associational  school, 
do. ;  Dr.  Keid  and  the  Scottish  school,  437  ; 
the  French  school,  do. ;  Kant  and  his 
school,  438 ;  criticism  of,  439,  40 ;  Hamil- 
ton 441;  of  faith,  do.;  Schleiermacher, 
443;  ethical  school,  444;  J.  G.  Fichte,  do.; 
Scheilir  g  and  Hegel,  446 ;  Herbart,  do. ; 
Trendelenburg,  do. 

Judgment,  chapter  on,  358-366;  forms  the 
concept,  359 ;  how  related  to  the  concept, 
do.;  psychological  and  logical,  do.;  the 
logical  judgment,  360;  force  of  the  copula, 
361;  judgment  of  content,  do.;  essence, 
362;  judgment  of  extent,  363;  importance 
to  science,  364 ;  propositions  of  extent  and 
content  how  related,  365. 

Kant,  theory  of  sense-perception,  203 ;  on  the 
nature  of  the  concept,  345 ;  on  origin  of 
knowledge,  424 ;  views  of  categories  and 
intuitions,  438 ;  criticism  of,  439 ;  of  practi- 
cal reason,  442  ;  doctrine  of  space  and  time, 
478 ;  on  causations,  495  ;  error  concerning 
forms  of  knowledge,  538 ;  the  thing  in  itself, 
532  ;  on  the  real  and  phenomenal,  540  ;  an- 
tinomies, 550. 

Kepler,  discovery  by,  398 ;  exclamation,  414. 

Knowledge  denned  and  discussed,  42-50 ;  how 
far  definable,  42  ;  is  action,  do. ;  exercised 
under  conditions,  do.;  these  various,  43; 
two  classes  of  objects,  43 ;  preparation  of 
objects,  44 ;  involves  certainty,  oo.  ;  being 
its  correlate,  do.;  involves  apprehension, 
of  relations,  45 ;  objection,  do. ;  involves 
analysis  and  synthesis,  46 ;  when  the  pro- 
cess is  complete,  46,  7  ;  these  products  ob- 
jects of  subsequent  knowledge,  47  ;  repre- 
sentative and  represented  knowledge,  do. ; 
acts  of  kn.  diverse  in  energy,  do.;  atten- 
tion, 47,  8;  some  objects  known  more  easi- 
ly than  others,  do. ;  psychological  and  phil- 
osophical ku.,  48 ;  critical  stage  of  kn.,  50 ; 
direct  and  reflex,  of  matter  and  spirit,  5:34 ; 
direct  involves  apprehension  of  being  as 
well  as  relations,  do.;  reflex,  difficult  to 
analyze,  do. 

Language,  relation  to  psychological  truth, 
84 ;  of  common  life,  a  test  of  truth,  85  ;  in- 
fluenced by  association,  253;  relation  to 
thought,  226,  7  ;  the  study  of,  327. 

Law,  its  relations  to  psychology,  8. 

Law  and  power,  481. 

Leibnitz,  doctrine  of  latent  consciousness, 
76 ;  latent  modifications  in  association, 
244;  on  the  sufficient  reason,  375  ;  criticism 
on  Locke's  doctrine  of  '-"'gin  of  knowledge, 
424;  on  intuitions,  48t>,  sufficient  reason 
as  applied  by  Wolf,  491. 

Light  of  nature,  434. 

Limit  and  limitation  of  objects  and  events,  459. 

Limited,  the  distinguished  from  the  condi- 
tioned, 548, 

Locke,  doctrine  of  reflection  and  conscious- 
ness, 63  ;  theory  of  sense-perception,  195,  6 ; 
doctrine  of  knowledge,  196;  of  association, 
231 ;  on  the  syllogism,  434 ;  on  innate  ideas, 
3S3  ;  on  iutu  tions,  etc.,  422  ;  theory  of 
causation,  401 ;  relation  to  Mill  and  Hume, 
do. ;  to  de  Binvu,  do. ;  to  his  own  doctrine 
of  knowledge,  do. ;  on  substance,  ft.'V2 ; 
wu  primary  and  secondary  qualities,  536. 


Logic,  its  relation  to  Psychology,  9;  to  meta- 
physics, 10. 

Logical  relation  of  processes  and  products, 
49,;  contrasted  with  psychological,  50;  do 
not  always  coincide,  do. 

Maas,  theorj  of  association,  235. 

Malebranche,  theory  of  sense-perception,  195 ; 
of  causation.  494. 

Mansel,  H.  L.,  on  negative  thinking,  and  on 
the  Infinite,  etc.,  547-550. 

Materialism  accounted  for,  12-13 ;  argument* 
in  favor  of,  14 — 17;  counter-arguments. 
17-21. 

Materialists,  their  views  of  psychology,  36. 

Mathematical  affections  of  matter,  Stewart's 
doctrine  of,  535. 

Mathematical,  reasoning,  380-386;  its  enti- 
ties or  concepts,  380-383 ;  into  categories. 
419-433. 

Mathematical  relations,  chapter  on.  454; 
quantity,  465 ;  concepts,  two  classes  of,  do. ; 
application  to  matter,  do. ;  to  mechanics 
and  chemistry,  469 ;  to  light,  sound,  and 
heat,  do. ;  suggested  and  defined  by  motion, 
471. 

Mathematics,  rests  on  final  cause,  514. 

Matter,  relations  of  the  soul  to,  11-24;  phe- 
nomena first  "attended  to,  12;  preposses- 
sions which  it  engenders,  13;  furnishe* 
language  for  physical  phenomena,  22-24. 

Matter  and  form,  in  sense-perception,  192,  3. 

Matter,  its  capacity  to  be  perceived  not  an 
attribute,  535,  6;  known  as  being,  do.;  its 
most  important  relations  to  the  soul  as 
sentient,  do. 

Measurement  involves  number,  462 ;  involves 
both  number  and  magnitude,  do. 

Memory  a  modification  of  representation, 
210,  11;  chapter  on,  254-278;  essential  ele- 
ments in  an  act  of,  254-256 ;  memory  tech- 
nically defined,  256,  7  ;  representation  and 
recognition,  257  ;  spontaneous  and  inten- 
tional, 258  ;  spontaneous  defined,  do. ;  orig- 
inal differences  in,  do. ;  relations  peculiar 
to  it,  259 ;  its  value,  do. ;  requires  the  ration- 
al also,  260 ;  the  intentional  memory  defin- 
ed, do. ;  relations  to  the  knowing  mind, 
260,  1 ;  recovery  of  forgotten  objects,  262,  3; 
memory  as  the  power  to  retain,  263;  how 
accounted  for,  do. ;  figurative  explanations, 
Gassendi's,  do.  ;  ready  and  tenacious,  do.; 
forgetful  ness,  264;  forgotten  knowledge 
recovered,  265,  6  ;  dependence  on  the  bodily 
condition,  do. ;  influenced  by  the  season  or 
the  time  of  the  day,  266;  sudden  loss  of 
memory,  267 ;  how  explained,  do.  ;  varie- 
ties of,  268-271 ;  development  of,  271,  2  :  in 
infancy,  childhood  and  youth,  do. ;  culti- 
vation of  the  mem  >ry,  273-277;  fundamen- 
tal principles,  274,  Buxton's  advice,  do. ; 
artificial  memory,  do. ;  value,  objections, 
275  ;  when  useful,  276 ;  Coleridge's  acts  of 
memory,  277  :  moral  conditions  of,  277. 

Metaphysics,  iU  relations  to  psych.,  9:  to 
logic,  do. ;  assumes  final  cause,  512. 

Microcosm,  the  soul  a,  73. 

Middle  terms,  369-374 ;  invention  of,  389. 

Mill,  James,  an  associationalist,  38;  denies 
consc'ousness  of  ego,  70;  admits  it,  71; 
doctrine  of  association,  232 ;  on  intuition, 
430. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  an  associationalist,  SS; 
doctrine  of  ni'cosary  truths,  :i9;  i-onsciqq* 

24* 


562 


INDEX. 


ness  of  ego,  70;  doctrine  of  association, 
5232 ;  on  the  nature  of  the  concept,  344  ;  doc- 
trine of  the  syllogism,  370;  on  intuitions 
and  first  truths,  486 ;  theory  of  causation, 
487  ;  relation  to  those  of  Hume  and  Brown, 
do. ;  definition  of  the  sou],  529 ;  definition  of 
body,  error  in,  do. 

Mind  and  matter,  chapter  on,  525-540. 

Mnemonics.    (See  Memory.) 

Morell,  J.  D.,  perception  into  classification, 
176. 

Motion  bodily,  provision  for,  by  nature,  140  ; 
for  combined  activity,  141 ;  how  controlled 
by  the  intellect,  141-3 ;  aids  sense-percep- 
tion, 172. 

Motion,  relation  of  space  and  time  concepts 
to,  470 ;  universality  of,  do. ;  indicates  posi- 
tion and  rest,  471 ;  suggests  time  relations, 
dp. ;  mathematical  quantities,  do. ;  the  con- 
dition of  generalization,  do. 

Miiller,  J.,  theory  of  nerve  endings  in  touch, 
121;  theory  of  extra-organic  perception, 
155  ;  theory  of  sense-perception,  do. 

Muscular  sense-perceptions  defined  and  divi- 
ded, 109;  lowest  in  rank,  do.;  in  touch, 
117,  18 ;  first  developed,  153. 

Names,  significance  of,  338.  (See  Words.)  Of 
concepts,  advantages  of,  are  sensuous, 
353,  4. 

Negative  notions,  448. 

Nerves,  reflex  action  of,  99 ;  afferent  and 
efferent,  do. ;  subject  to  various  affections, 
do. ;  special  function  in  sensation,  do. 

Nervous  system  described,  98. 

Newton,  discovery  by,  407. 

Noetic  faculty,  59. 

Nominalists,  the,  341-47;  strife  adjusted, 
349,  50. 

Nothing,  Hegel's  use  of,  450. 

Notion.    (See  Concept.) 

Number,  how  developed,  462 ;  defined,  468  ; 
relations,  how  symbolized,  do.;  concepts 
of,  do. ;  application  to  magnitude,  do. 

Objects— object- and  subject-,  43;  material 
distinguished  from  percepts,  165 ;  involve 
two  relations,  166 ;  percepts  united  in  space 
and  time,  166-8 ;  involve  substance  and  at- 
tribute, 168-171. 

Organic  sense-perceptions,  110. 

Original  sense-perceptions  defined,  132. 

Owen,  on  species,  353. 

Perception.    (See  Sense-perception.) 

Perception,  proper,  Hamilton's  doctrine  of, 
104 ;  defined,  105-109 ;  an  act  of  knowledge, 
105 ;  a  non-ego,  do. ;  an  extended  non-ego, 
106;  accompanies  every  sense,  do.;  with 
varying  clearness,  107 ;  in  inverse  ratio  to 
sensation-proper,  do. ;  in  different  sensa- 
tions and  senses,  108  ;  of  touch,  120-125  ;  in 
vision,  128-131 ;  acquired,  132. 

*ercepts,  how  gained,  165 ;  how  combined, 
do. ;  distinguished  from  things,  do. ;  com- 
bined into  things  by  two  stages,  166. 

Phantasy,  a  modification  of  representation, 
211 ;  chapter  on,  278-295  ;  defined,  278  ;  ex- 
amples of,  do. ;  why  inf>  equent,  278 ;  faint- 
ing, sleep,  etc.,  278,  9 ;  several  suppositions 
possible,  279  ;  why  probably  explicable  by 
laws,  279 ;  depend  on  laws  of  representa- 
tion, do. ;  bodily  condition  influential,  280  ; 
creative  power  possible,  in,  281  ;  sleep  con- 
gidored  physiologically,  282;  prouum-iit 


phenomena,  do.;  considered  psychologi. 
cally,  283-286;  somnambulism,  286-294} 
insanity,  294. 

Phenomenal  and  real.    (See  Real.) 

Phenomenon  defined,  34. 

Philosophical  consciousness.  (See  Conscious- 
ness.) 

Physiology  defined,  2 ;  assumes  final  cause, 
517. 

Plato,  theory  of  sense-perception,  191;  on 
universal,  339,  40. 

Political  Science,  its  relation  to  psychology! 
8. 

Porphyry's  Questions  on  universals,  340. 

Postulates,  381. 

Power  and  law  distinguished,  376. 

Powers  of  the  soul.    (See  Faculties.) 

Predicable,  331. 

Prescind,  to,  328. 

Presentation.    (See  Presentative  Knowledge.) 

Presentative  Faculty  defined  and  divided, 
55,6. 

Presentative  Knowledge,  Part  I.,  61-206. 

Primary  laws  of  association,  227-240. 

Primary  Qualities,  535,  6. 

Principle,  various  senses  of  the  term,  423,  4. 

Probable  or  problematical  reasoning,  378,  9 ; 
founded  on  causes  and  laws,  279. 

Proposition.     (See  Judgment.) 

Psychological  contrasted  with  logical  rela- 
tions, 49. 

Psychology  defined  and  vindicated,  1-11 ;  im- 
properly named,  1 ;  properly  a  science,  do. ; 
relations  to  psychology  and  anthropology, 
2,  3;  its  phenomena  peculiar,  3;  known  by 
consciousness,  do. ;  interest  of,  do. ;  value 
of,  promotes  self-knowledge,  4  ;  teaches  self- 
control,  do.;  promotes  moral  culture,  do.  ; 
aids  in  understanding  others,  6 ;  indispen- 
sable to  educators,  do. ;  aids  in  the  study 
and  enjoyment  of  literature,  6,  7;  the 
mother  of  all  the  human  sciences,  7  ;  re- 
lation to  ethics,  da. ;  to  political  and  social 
science,  8;  to  law,  do.;  to  aesthetics,  do.;  to 
theology,  do. ;  special  relation  to  logic  and 
metaphysics,  9 ;  why  called  phil.  and  met., 
10 ;  disciplines  to  method,  do. ;  a  branch 
of  physics,  11 ;  why  distrusted,  11, 12  ;  its 
phenomena  overlooked,  12;  resolved  into 
material  agencies,  13 ;  is  it  a  science  ? 
34-41 ;  the  materials,  whence  derived,  34,  5 ; 
an  inductive  science,  34;  also  the  science 
of  induction,  35;  objections  against  psy- 
chology as  a  science,  35,  6 ;  answers,  do. ; 
views  of  materialists,  36;  of  cercbralists, 
do. ;  views  refuted,  37 ;  phrenologists,  do. ; 
Associationalists,  38-40 ;  a  priori  theory, 
40 ;  wherein  defective,  41 ;  method  of  ob- 
serving and  interpreting  its  phenomena, 
80-82;  in  what  sense  id-parts  new  know- 
ledge, 83;  aided  by  language,  84;  misled 
bv  exact  terminology,  85 ;  tried  by  the 
language  of  common  life,  85,  6 ;  by  the  ac- 
tions, how  it  can  interpret  both,  87  ;  why 
men  are  so  positive  in  their  theories  of, 
88  ;  slow  progress  and  divisions  explained, 
89.  90 ;  special  difficulties  of  studying, 
90,92 

Qualities  of  matter,  primary  and  secondary, 
535,  6;  two  and  threefold  classification, 
do.;  Aristotle's,  Descartes1,  and  Locke's, 
do. ;  Reid's,  Stewart's  and  Hamilton's,  do.; 
the  secundo-primary  not  established,  do. ; 
Hamilton's  locomotive  energy,  do. ;  are  th« 


INDEX. 


563 


primary  qualities  essential  to  the  notion  of 
matter '(  536 ;  do  they  give  real  knowledge  ? 
539. 

Quantity,  relations  of,  456 ;  mathematical, 
465. 

Keal  and  phenomenal,  536-539 ;  contrasted  in 
two  senses,  do. ;  Kant's  doctrine  of,  do, ; 
Hamilton's,  540;  their  views  criticised,  do.; 
question  not  peculiar  to  philosophers,  do. ; 
special  sense  of  roal,  do. ;  relations  of  the 
intellect  trustworthy,  do. 

Real  categories,  540. 

Realism,  truth,  and  significance  of,  350-352 ; 
assert  permanent  relations,  351 ;  mistakes, 
352. 

Realists.    (See  Realism.) 

Reason  and  consequent,  relation  of,  373,  4. 

Reason  to.    (See  Reasoning.) 

Reasoning,  deductive,  chapter  on,  366-377; 
reasoning  implies  judgment,  366,  7  ;  induc- 
tive and  deductive,  367;  often  conjoined, 
368 ;  deductive,  (see  Deduction ; )  probable, 
378-380;  mathematical,  380-386;  formal, 
386,  7. 

Redintegration,  law  of,  234,  5 ;  how  far  it  ac- 
counts for  the  laws  of  association,  235,  6. 

Reflection,  as  used  by  Locke.  63. 

Reflective  conscious ness.^^jtee  Conscious- 
ness.) 

Regulative  faculty,  59. 

Reid,  consciousness  of  ego,  69 ;  defective  view 
of  sensation,  103 ;  theory  of  perceiving  ex- 
ternality by  touch,  107 ;  theory  of  sense- 
perception,  198 :  on  the  nature  of  the  con- 
cept, 342,  3 :  on  axioms,  383 ;  on  intuition 
and  first  truths,  437. 

Relations  involved  in  knowledge,  45,  6;  ob- 
jects unrelated,  46  ;  relations  do  not  attract 
ideas,  232,  3 ;  of  place  in  assoc.,  233 ;  of  time 
and  of  both,  do. ;  of  similarity  and  con- 
trast, do. ;  of  cause  and  effect,  do. ;  of  means 
and  end,  234;  general  relations  or  catego- 
ries,;(see  C.;)  formal  relations,  chapter  on, 
446-454 ;  mathematical,  chapter  on,  454-480. 

Relative  notions,  449. 

Repetition,  in  sense-perception,  excites  in- 
terest, 173-5. 

Representation,  defined,  56;  its  objects,  do.; 
conditions,  57. 

Representation  and  R.  Kn.,  Part  II.,  206-295 ; 
defined,  206 ;  not  limited  to  sensible  objects, 
do.;  a  creative  power,  207;  appellations 
for,  207,  8;  objects  of,  208 ;  individual,  do.  ; 
involve  relations,  209 ;  no  technical  names 
for  objects,  of,  do. ;  conditions  and  laws  of, 
210;  divisions  of,  210-213;  interest  and 
importance  of,  213,14;  object  of,  chapter 
on,  215-224;  why  needs  discussion,  do.; 
three  heads  of  inquiry,  215  ;  psychical,  do. ; 
transient,  do.  ;  not  spectrum  or  hallucina- 
tion, 216 ;  intellectual,  do. ;  relation  of  ob- 
ject to  its  original,  217  ;  comparable  to  no 
other,  do. ;  does  not  resemble  its  objects, 
do. ;  contradictions  involved,  do. ;  no  re- 
semblance in  memory  or  recognition,  do. ; 
mental  pictures  less  exciting,  219 ;  consist 
of  fewer  elements,  do. ;  recalled  slowly  in 
parts,  220;  objects  of  imagination,  221; 
usefulness  of  representative  objects  to 
thought,  do. ;  less  distracting  than  realities, 
222  ;  more  easily  compared,  do. ;  and  gen- 
eralized, do. ;  serviceable  in  action,  224; 
conditions  and  laws  of  Rep.,  chapter  on, 
(•ee  Association  of  Ideas,)  225-254. 


Representative    faculty.      (See    Representa- 
tion.) 

Retention,  262. 
Retina,  image  on,  126. 
Royer-Collard,  on  causation,  437. 


Schema,  nature  and  service  of,  222,  3. 

Schleiermacht-r,  theory  of  sense-perception, 
205  ;  on  intuitions  and  the  categories,  443. 

Science,  classifications  of,  336,  7  ;  nomencla- 
ture of,  337  ;  related  to  common  knowledge, 
365  ;  defined,  do.  ;  when  complete,  367. 

Scientific  knowledge.     (See  Science.) 

Secondary  laws  of  association,  240-243. 

Secondary  Qualities,  535,  6. 

Secundo-primary  qualities,  535. 

Sensation  proper,  defined,  102  ;  experienced 
in  the  soul,  do. ;  connected  with  an  organ- 
ism, 103 ;  Reid's  view  of,  do. ;  Berkeley's, 
do. ;  Hamilton's,  104;  involve  relations  of 
place,  do. ;  differ  in  kind  and  degree,  105 ; 
definiteness  of  place,  do. ;  inversely  to  per- 
ception proper,  do.;  muscular,  109 ;  organic, 
110  ;  special,  111 ;  of  taste,  112  ;  of  hearing, 
113  ;  of  gentle  touch,  117  ;  acute  and  pain- 
ful of,  118  ;  of  temperature,  do. ;  of  weight, 
119  ;  muscular  in  touch,  do. ;  of  vision,  126. 

Sense-perception,  93-205 ;  conditions  and  pro- 
cess, chapter  on,  93-109 ;  defined,  95  ;  called 
earliest  into  action,  do. ;  seems  easy  to  un- 
derstand, do. ;  why  diflScult,  94  ;  what  it  is 
not,  94,  5;  example  of,  in  an  orange,  do.; 
what  it  is,  96 ;  eight  topics  of  inquiry,  97  ; 
conditions  of  sense-perception,  97-98;  bodi- 
ly organism,  98  ;  nervous  system,  do. ;  sen- 
sorium,  99  ;  appropriate  objects  a  condition, 
100;  action  of  object  on  sensorium,  do. ; 
process  of  sense  perception,  101-109 ;  psy- 
chical, not  physiological,  do. ;  classes  of 
sense-perceptions,  chapter  on,  109-131 ; 
three  named,  109 ;  muscular,  do. ;  organic, 
110  ;  special,  do. ;  smell,  111 ;  taste,  112  ; 
hearing,  113-116;  q.  v.;  touch,  116-126; 
q.  v. ;  sight,  126-132  ;  q.  v. ;  acquired  sense- 
perceptions,  chapter  on,  132-150 ,  q.  v. ;  de- 
velopment and  growth  of,  chapter  on,  150— 
165  ;  interest  of  the  problem,  150  ;  perplex- 
ing to  the  imagination,  150 ;  data  for  solv- 
ing it,  151,  2  ;  products  of,  chapter  on.  165- 
179;  conditions  of  perception  of  things, 
171 ;  energy  by  contrast,  etc.,  172 ;  motion, 
do. ;  repetition,  173 ;  need  of,  explained, 
173-175  ;  familiarity,  175  ;  repetition  not 
recognition,  176  ;  continuance  of  time,  177 ; 
activity  of  the  soul  in,  chapter  on,  180-187  ; 
summary  and  review  of  theory  of,  187-189, 
theories  of,  chapter  on,  189-205. 

Sensorium  described,  99 ;  known  as  extended, 
122. 

Sensory.    (See  Sensorium.) 

Sight,  sense  of,  126;  organ  of,  126-131; 
conditions  of,  126 ;  image  on  the  retina, 
function  of,  127  ;  as  sensation.  127,  8 ;  as 
perception,  128-130  ;  place  of  the  object  as 
originally  seen,  130  ;  dignity  of  vision,  131 ; 
acquired  perceptions  of,  134,  35  ;  e. ;  why 
and  how  its  percepts  are  projected  in  space, 
157-159  ;  percepts  of,  combined  with  thoso 
of  touch,  159-162. 

Simple  notions,  333. 

Sleep.    (See  Phantasy.) 

Smell,  sense-perceptions  of,  110  ;  organs,  111? 
acquired  perceptions  of,  133,  4. 

Socrates,  on  universals,  339. 


564 


INDEX. 


Somnambulism,  three  species  of,  286,  7  ;  nat- 
ural, 287  ;  activities  required  in,  do. ;  mag- 
netic, do. ;  representation  in  excess,  do. ; 
also  some  sense-perceptions,  288 ;  acute  but 
limited,  do.;  the  sense-organs  used,  do.; 
extraordinary  intellectual  activities,  289; 
state  usually  forgotten,  291 ;  when  remem- 
bered, do.;  alternate  states,  do.;  artificial 
somnambulism,  292  ;  hypnotism  do.  ;  rela- 
tion to  somnambulism,  do.;  control  of  one 
mind  by  another,  293. 

Soul,  the,  signification  of  the  term,  1,  2; 
original  designation,  2 ;  secondary  mean- 
ings, do. ;  relations  of,  to  matter,  11—24 ; 
phenomena  of,  resolved  into  matter,  12; 
\  phenomena  at  first  overlooked,  13  ;  argu- 
ments for  the  material  structure  of,  14-17  ; 
for  its  spiritual  essence,  17-21 ;  its  phenom- 
ena real,  21 ;  cannot  be  judged  by  material 
analogies,  do. ;  described  in  language  of 
physical  origin,  22,  3 :  consequent  dangers, 
23,  4 ;  faculties  of,  (see  Faculties  ;)  unity  of, 
higher  than  any  other,  29,  30 ;  does  not 
exclude  complexness,  31 ;  powers  of  the 
soul  threefold,  do. 

Sound,  sense-perceptions  of,  113-116. 

Space,  a  condition  of  imagination,  295  ;  void, 

•  how  first  known,  454 ;  inclosed  and  inclos- 
ing space,  do. ;  these  relations  analyzed, 
do. ;  objects  as  imaged,  457 ;  relation  to  mo- 
tion, do. ;  as  infinite,  do. ;  in  what  sense 
unlimited,  do.;  cannot  be  generalized,  463; 
nor  defined,  do. ;  known  by  intuition,  do. ; 
correlate  of  the  extended,  do. ;  not  a  sub- 
stance, do. ;  nor  a  quality,  do. ;  nor  a  rela- 
tion, or  correlation,  476  ;  nor  a  form,  do. ; 
in  what  sense  knowable,  do. ;  conclusion 
respecting,  478. 

Space  and  Time,  chapter  on,  454;  objects 
generalized,  do. ;  their  relations  individual 
and  general,  458. 

Species,  in  sense-perception,  scholastic  doc- 
trine of,  193 ;  nature  and  permanence  of, 
350-353. 

Spectra,  216;  293,  4. 

Speculative  or  critical  stage  of  knowledge, 
52-419. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  an  associationalist,  38-40 ; 
doctrine  of  consciousness,  66  ;  resolves  per- 
ception into  recognition,  176 ;  on  the  know- 
ledge of  the  Infinite,  550. 

Spinoza's  definition  of  substance,  532 ;  on  the 
Infinite,  548. 

Spirit,  original  meamng  of,  1,  2. 

Standards  of  space  and  time,  464. 

States  of  the  soul  defined,  34. 

Stereoscope,  invalid  inference  from,  129. 

Stewart,  Dugald,  consciousness  of  ego,  69 ; 
theory  of  attention,  178 ;  theory  of  sense- 
perception,  198,  9 ;  explanation  of  latent 
modifications  of  consciousness,  244 ;  on  the 
syllogism,  372;  on  geom.  axioms,  383; 
on  primary  and  secondary  qualities,  535. 

Studies,  natural  order  of,  52,  3. 

Subject-objects,  43. 

Substance  and  Attribute,  relation  of,  in  sense- 
perception,  168-17 1 ;  supposes  reflex  know- 
ledge, do. ;  supposed  in  the  concept,  332  ; 
category  of,  524 ;  chapter  on,  do. ;  import 
of  the  terms,  do. ;  etymology  of,  do. ;  dif- 
ferent theories  of,  do.;  Locke  on,  532; 
Hume,  Reid,  Kant,  Whewell,  532. 

Substance  represented  by  touch-percepts, 
170, 1 ;  distinguished  from  logical  and 
grammatical  subject,  524 ;  etymology  of, 


524 ;  in  the  abstract,  525 ;  three  classes  of; 
526  ;  spiritual  substance,  525  ;  distinguished 
by  attributes  of  causation  and  design,  do. ; 
spiritual  and  human  defined,  526,  7 ;  J.  8. 
Mill's  definition,  529 ;  material  defined,  528 ; 
related  to  space  in  a  two-fold  way,  530; 
power  to  affect  the  senses,  do. ;  matter  not 
causative  of  perception,  do. ;  Mill,  Brown, 
and  Kant  on,  532 ;  permanently  occupies 
space,  530 ;  not  self-subsisteut,  531 ;  Spino- 
za's error  and  definition,  do. ;  Whevvell's, 
532 ;  belief  in  permanence  founded  in  de- 
sign, 533. 

Syllogism  and  Deduction,  chapter  on,  366- 
377 ;  parts  of,  369  ;  possible  changes  in,  371 ; 
does  not  rest  on  the  dictum  de  omni  et 
nullo,  372 ;  not  identical  with  induction, 
373 ;  explained  by  relation  of  reason  to 
consequent,  373,  4;  this  by  causation  or  iti 
equivalent,  374;  sanctioned  by  Aristotle 
and  Leibnitz,  374,  5 ;  immediate  syllogisms, 
375,  6. 

Symbolic  Knowledge,  354-357 ;  can  the  infi- 
nite and  spiritual  be  symbolized  ?  357. 

Synthesis,  involved  in  knowledge,  46. 

System,  chapter  on,  416-418;  any  arrange- 
ment of  content  or  extent,  416;  of  both 
united,  do. ;  of  propositions  of  either,  or 
both,  417  ;  of_lggs  obvious  concepts,  do.  ,• 
in  science,  tfiflabstracta,  do. 

Systemizatioi«Bpee  System.) 

Taste,  sense-perceptions  of,  112-113 ;  variety, 
names  of,  do. 

Tennyson,  on  self-consciousness,  75. 

Theology,  relations  to  psychology,  8 ;  Dela- 
tions to  final  cause,  521. 

Theories  of  nature  of  concepts  and  universals, 
(see  Concept) ; — of  sense-perception,  chap- 
ter on,  189-205 ;  universal,  189  ;  reflex  in- 
fluence mischievous,  190 ;  liable  to  fc«  er- 
roneous, do. ;  pertain  chiefly  to  vision,  do. ; 
of  the  earlier  Greek  philosophers,  do.; 
Empedocles,  do. ;  Democritus,  191 ;  the 
Socratic  school,  do. ;  Plato,  do. ;  Arislotle, 
192;  the  schoolmen  193;  Descartes,  194; 
Malebranche,  195 ;  Arnauld,  do. ;  L<  eke, 
195,6;  Berkeley,  197;  Hume,  do.;  Heid, 
198;  Stewart,  do.;  Brown,  199;  Hamilton, 
199-202;  Condillac,  202 ;  Kant,  203;  Her- 
bert, 204 ;  Schleiermacher,  do. 

Thing  in  itself  explained,  532 ;  Kant's  doc- 
trine of.  (See  Kant.) 

Thinking.     (See  Thought.) 

Thinking,  and  Thought-knowledge,  Part  III., 
319 ;  terms  variously  applied,  319  ;  relation 
to  higher  knowledge,  do.  ;  dignity  of,  320  ; 
illustrated  by  an  example  320,  1 ;  thought 
defined,  321 ;  use  of  term  justified,  322 ;  ap- 
pellations for  the  power,  322,  3 ;  forms  of, 
324 ;  relation  to  lower  powers,  do.  ;  when 
does  it  begin  ?  325  ;  abstract  and  concrete, 
do. ;  difficulty  of  abstract,  do. ;  to  language, 
326. 

Thought,  faculty  of,  defined,  57  ;  its  objects, 
do. ;  its  conditions,  58 ;  how  far  prepared 
by  thought  itself,  do. ;  certain  intuitions 
assumed  in,  do. ;  anal> sis  of,  involves  two 
general  inquiries,  59,  60. 

Time  and  Space,  relations  of,  chapter  on. 
454;  estimates  of,  461;  objects  general- 
ized, 463.  (See  T.  &  S.) 

Time,  a  condition  of  imagination,  295 ;  objects 
as  imaged,  459;  measure  of,  461 ;  estimate* 
of,  do.;  relation  to  motion,  470;  time-relw 


INDEX. 


565 


471 ;  as  infinite,  473;  in  what  sense  unlim- 
ited, 475 ;  cannot  be  generalized,  do. ;  not 
denned,  do. ;  is  known  by  intuition,  do. ; 
correlate  ot  the  enduring,  476 ;  not  a  sub- 
stance, 477  ;  nor  a  quality,  do. ;  nor  a  rela- 
tion or  correlation,  do. ;  nor  a  form,  478 ; 
in  what  sense  knowable,  do. ;  conclusion 
respecting,  479. 

Touch,  sense,  of,  116-126 ;  organ,  116, 17 ;  con- 
ditions of,  117  ;  variety  of  sensations,  do. ; 
gentle  touch,  118 ;  involving  violence,  do.  ; 
of  temperature,  118, 19  ;  of  pressure,  119 ; 
muscular,  do.  ;  perception  proper  of,  120, 1 : 
of  extension,  do. ;  conditions  and  act, 
121,2;  of  extension  direct,  not  indirect, 
122 ;  perception  of  externality  in  two 
senses,  122 ;  of  the  body  to  the  soul,  123,  4  ; 
of  one  body  to  another,  124  ;  the  leading 
sense,  do. ;  called  general  sensibility,  125  ; 
furnishes  terms  for  the  intellect,  do. ;  per- 
««pts  of,  combined  with  those  of  sight,  157,8. 


Unconditioned,  (see  Infinite,)  primary  and 

secondary  sense  of,  544. 
Universal,  226;  theories  of,  nature  of.    (Se« 

Concept.) 
Universe,  the  finite,  how  conceived,  542. 


Vibrations  of  nerves  supposed  to  account  for 

representation,  97. 
Vision.    (See  Sight.) 


Weber,  E.  H.,  experiments  on  touch,  116. 
Whewell,  erroneous  definition  of  substances, 

Wolf,  on  causation,  495. 

Worcester,  Marquis  of,  discovery  of  steam, 

412. 
Words,  importance  of,  353,  4;  no  substitute 

for  intuition,  354, 5£  operate  by  suggestion, 

356. 


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THEBEGINNINGSOFHISTORY 

According  to  the  Bible  and  the  Traditions  of  the  Oriental  Peoples.  From 
the  Creation  of  Man  to  the  Deluge.  By  FRANCOIS  LENORMANT, 
Professor  of  Archoeology  at  the  National  Library  of  France,  etc. 
(Translated  from  the  Second  French  Edition).  With  an  introduction 
by  FRANCIS  BROWN,  Associate  Professor  in  Biblical  Philology, 
Union  Theological  Seminary. 


1  Vol.,  12mOo  6OO  pages,         -  $2.5O. 


"  What  should  we  see  in  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis  ?  "  writes  M.  Lenor- 
mant  in  his  preface — "A  revealed  narrative,  or  a  human  tradition,  gathered 
up  for  preservation  by  inspired  writers  as  the  oldest  memory  of  their  race  ? 
This  is  the  problem  which  I  have  been  led  to  examine  by  comparing  the  nar- 
rative of  the  Bible:  with  those  which  were  current  among  the  civilized  peo- 
ples of  most  ancient  origin  by  which  Israel  was  surrounded,  and  from  the 
midst  of  which  it  came." 

The  book  is  not  more  erudite  than  it  is  absorbing  in  its  interest.  It  has 
had  an  immense  influence  upon  contemporary  thought ;  and  has  approached 
its  task  with  an  unusual  mingling  of  the  reverent  and  the  scientific  spirit. 


"  That  the  '  Oriental  Peoples  '  had  legends  on  the  Creation,  the  Fall  of  Man,  the 
Deluge,  and  other  primitive  events,  there  is  no  denying.  Nor  is  there  any  need  01 
denying  it,  as  this  admirable  volume  shows.  Mr.  Lenormant  is  not  only  a  believer 
in  revelation,  but  a  devout  confessor  of  what  came  by  Moses  ;  as  well  as  of  what  came 
by  Christ.  In  this  explanation  of  Chaldean,  Babylonian,  Assyrian  and  Phenician 
tradition,  he  discloses  a  prodigality  of  thought  and  skill  allied  to  great  variety  of  pur- 
suit, and  diligent  manipulation  of  what  he  has  secured.  He  'spoils  the  Egyptians' 
by  boldly  using  for  Christian  purposes  materials,  which,  if  left  unused,  might  be 
turned  against  the  credibility  of  the  Mosaic  records. 

"  From  the  mass  of  tradition  here  examined  it  would  seem  that  if  these  ancient 
legends  have  a  common  basis  of  truth,  the  first  part  of  Genesis  stands  more  generally 
related  to  the  religious  history  of  mankind,  than  if  it  is  taken  primarily  as  one  account, 
by  one  man,  to  one  people.  .  .  .  While  not  claiming  for  the  author  the 
setting  forth  of  the  absolute  truth,  nor  the  drawing  from  what  he  has  set  forth  the 
soundest  conclusions,  we  can  assure  our  readers  of  a  diminishing  fear  of  learned  un- 
belief after  the  perusal  of  this  work." — The  New  Englander. 

"  With  reference  to  the  book  as  a  whole  it  may  be  said  :  (i).  That  nowhere  else  can 
one  obtain  the  mass  of  information  upon  this  subject  in  so  convenient  a  form;  (2).  That 
the  investigation  is  conducted  in  a  truly  scientific  manner,  and  with  an  eminently 
Christian  spirit  ;  (3).  That  the  results,  though  very  different  from  those  in  common 
acceptance,  contain  much  that  is  interesting  and  to  say  the  least,  plausible  ;  (4).  That 
th2  author  while  he  seems  in  a  number  of  cases  to  be  injudicious  in  his  state- 
ments and  conclusions,  has  done  work  in  investigation  and  in  working  out  details  that 
will  be  of  service  to  all,  whether  general  readers  or  specialists." — The  Hebrew 
Student. 

•  The  work  is  one  that  deserves  to  be  studied  by  all  students  of  ancient  history,  and 
in  particular  by  ministers  of  the  Gospel,  whose  office  requires  them  to  interpret  the 
Scriptures,  and  who  ought  not  to  be  ignorant  of  the  latest  and  most  interesting  con- 
tribution of  science  to  the  elucidation  to  the  sacred  volume." — New  York  Tribune, 


CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS,  PUBLISHERS, 

743  AND  745  BROADWAY,  NEW  VORK. 


634872 

11111 

3   1378  00634  8729 


1 


BF121 

P84e 

1883 


Porter,  N. 

Elements  of  intellectual 
science. 


-      4       I      ,    ' 


